


Illuminations

by Cordria



Category: Danny Phantom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 10:04:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 50,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21013997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cordria/pseuds/Cordria
Summary: Darkness: Maddie and Phantom are trapped in the dark. Can they come to an agreement to work together before they both die at the full moon? Shadows: Danny may have saved his mother from the darkness, but can he save himself from the shadows that lurk around him? Light: Can Jack, Jazz, Sam, and Tucker find a way to save Danny before it's too late? (Originally posed as a three-part fic in 2006. Reposting here in 2019 in condensed chapters. Not yet edited)





	1. Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maddie and Phantom are trapped in the dark. Can they come to an agreement to work together before they both die at the full moon?

She woke in complete darkness. Her head throbbed in time to a quickstep dance. Letting out a soft moan, she pushed herself into a seated position. Absently rubbing her hand through her hair, she flinched as she touched a sensitive spot near the back of her head.

_Pain_.

Her eyes flickered quickly over the blackness as she felt the lump on her head. Not a single fragment of light shone through the darkness. _Where am I? _She closed her eyes, the totality of the blackness making her dizzy. It was far better to pretend she could see, but merely had her eyes shut.

_What happened to me? Why am I here?_

Reaching out with her fingers, she traced the harsh stone tiles of the floor. The spaces between the bricks were deep and wide. Fingers slipped into chill puddles of water, danced over sharp cracks and crevices, and explored to the farthest reaches of her arms. Yet she felt nothing more than more stones. No walls. No furniture. Nothing but ground.

Even through her thick clothes, the cold trickled into her bones. Slowly, silently, she rose onto her heels and crouched for a moment as her stiff joints protested the movements. Her eyes unconsciously drifted open again, trying to help her keep her balance and search for dangers.

_Darkness_.

A slice of a story she had read years ago flitted into her memory. A tale of a dark room… of a slicing pendulum… of a deep, bottomless, _pit_. Images of falling to her death filled her mind, followed soon after by thoughts of what _else_ could be out in the darkness. Moldy, dingy skeletons grinning into the black. Maggots and rats scurrying under her feet. Unseen monsters hiding, chained in a corner, waiting to pounce.

She shuddered and settled back onto the ground. She flinched at a crawling sensation on her arm, visions of spiders and centipedes and other dark-loving insects making her jumpy. _No, stop. There's nothing there. _She rubbed at her face. _What is going on? _Dropping her hands to her waist, she did a quick check of her utility belt. Everything was gone.

She groaned and buried her head into her hands, pressing her palms against her eyes. As sparks jumped into her vision, questions flitted through her brain like hummingbirds. _What happened to me?_

Slowly, ever so slowly, memories started to float back through her mind. No movie reels: only snapshots. Detailed pictures of moments that burst into bloom in her head like fireworks.

_Her son: missing for nearly a week._

_Jack: sitting in a dirty jumpsuit, staring at the wall of the kitchen, ignoring the fudge Jazz had placed in front of him._

_A police officer: trying to explain that it looked like Danny hadn't run away. They had activated the Amber Alert… but there was no sign of him anywhere._

_Her daughter: asleep in Danny's bed, tears still on her face._

_The police: once again telling her that they had found no trace of Danny._

_Sam: who by most accounts hadn't stopped crying in days._

Then she knew. She remembered. _Danny…_

Curling up into a ball – ignoring the chill of the floor – she cried over the loss of her son. Her little boy. Stomach twisting in knots, tears leaked from her eyes and traced cold paths down her cheeks. He'd only just started recovering from the accident a few months ago, and that fiasco with the school psychologist not two weeks ago. _My Danny.._.

Pulling her legs tightly against her chest, the pain of her emotions flooded through her. Her son had been taken. To where, she didn't know. By whom, she didn't know. All she knew was that he was gone. And now, she was here. Wherever here was.

More firefly memories flittered through her mind as she swiped at the tears on her face.

_A trip to the park at night, unable to sleep._

_A shadow on the grass._

_A sharp pain in her head._

_Blackness._

Chains rattled. She flipped her head around, eyes widening. Even in the complete darkness, she gazed about, searching for the source of the noise. Then, on the far side of the room, she saw two glowing, green eyes staring right back at her.

* * *

"Who's there?" she croaked. Her voice was raw from lack of use. She uncurled her limbs and quickly shifted into a defensive crouch, one hand coming up into a simple guard position, eyes focused on the green eyes shining through the pitch black.

_Green? Glowing?_

_Ghost._

In response, a ball of light formed unsteadily before the glowing eyes. Maddie blinked, tears blurring her vision as her eyes struggled to adapt to the sudden glow. She looked away, searching for dark shadows to let her stinging eyes rest. For a moment, she contented herself with gazing about the small room. Stone walls rose to a low ceiling; a thick door took up most of one wall; moisture sparkled on the small floor.

Finally she was able to turn back to the eyes in the corner. Squinting, she began to make out the vague form of a person, seemingly holding the light in one hand. She strained to see past the intense shine. Green eyes. Slight, lean build. Black clothes. White hair.

_The phantom._

"Ghost! Where are we? Where's my son?" She staggered to her feet, her head spinning dizzily. Her eyes still stung from the glow, but she refused to look away. In the two months she'd been chasing this ghost, she'd found it to be especially dangerous and tricky.

_Ghost Hunting Rule 2: Never look away from a ghost. They are unpredictable entities that will attack humans without a moments notice._

The phantom laughed, a sad grin growing on its pale face. "Why do you always blame me? You think I'm in any condition to kidnap anyone?" It gestured to the chains around its ankles that held it prisoner. Sighing, it closed its eyes and leaned back against the wall. "I've been stuck in here for.. well… a long time. It's hard to tell in the dark."

Maddie stared at the specter. There were dark circles around the ghost's eyes. It wore a tattered and torn jumpsuit. Dark patches dotted its skin. The ghost opened its eyes again and gazed at her for a moment, tipping its head to the side in apparent puzzlement. A shudder ran through her body. For a second, she thought she saw pity and concern in the ghost's eyes.

Her teeth clenched hard as she shook herself out of that thought. Ghosts don't feel. They don't have true emotions. That's why the feed on human emtions.

_Ghost Hunting Rule 4: Ghosts will attempt to trick you into believing they are not dangerous. They are._

"I gotta loose the light. I don't have enough energy for this."

The darkness fell back around them as the light flared and vanished. Maddie felt her body freeze, instincts screaming at her that the ghost would attack now that she couldn't she. She held her breath until the green eyes opened and looked at her once more. The ghost was still in the corner. It hadn't attacked.

_Are those chains real?_

Maddie slowly relaxed her body, keeping her eyes fixed on the ghost. Her first few breaths were unsteady. "Where is my son?" she repeated into the silence, her raspy voice not nearly as demanding as she wanted it to be.

The ghost sighed audibly, the spectral eyes sliding from side to side as it shook its head. "Not somewhere I can help him."

"Then you know where he is?" she asked. A thought skidded through her mind like a train wreck, causing her hands to fold unconsciously into fists. "Did you have anything to do with his kidnapping?" Her voice was terse.

_I always knew this ghost was bad news._

The ghost's eyes vanished. "I know where he is," the ghost murmured. "I know he's in really bad shape." The eyes opened back up, glowing with an odd light. Sarcasm dripped from its voice as the phantom continued, "And yes, I kidnapped him and locked him up somewhere before locking _myself_ in a dark room with no food." Under its breath, the ghost added, "Yeah, that makes a lot of sense."

Ignoring the comment, she took a step forwards. "Where is he?" she demanded. Her heart beat furiously in her throat, her fingers clenched tightly into fists as she waited for an answer.

"Locked away. I don't know exactly where, but I know he's alive." The ghost shifted, rattling the chains. "Barely," it added in a whisper. "If I could get out and save him I would."

Maddie stumbled backwards a step and dropped back to the ground in a half-crouch. Fighting off tears of pain and joy, she pulled her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her knees. _He's alive. My son is alive. _She pressed her forehead into her knees and sat in silence. _Barely alive_.

After a long few minutes, her head came back up. The green eyes were still gazing across the room at her, tipped slightly to the side. Now that her eyes had adjusted, she could _almost _see by the light coming off of them. The ghost was sitting in a position really similar to hers, just watching silently. No doubt feeding off the play of emotions through her mind. "Go away," she said angrily, looking away.

"Can't." The ghost said simply, its eyes dropping closed, its voice broken and weary. "Something in these chains is keeping me solid. Can't do a thing to them. Trust me. I've been trying for a long time."

The green eyes disappeared into the darkness and Maddie could hear the sound of its breathing deepen and even out. _It's asleep?_ She slowly stood up, ignoring the dizzying feeling of her headache. _Ghosts don't sleep. _A snort worked out of her nose and she shook her head slightly. _They don't breathe either._

Quietly questing out with her fingers, Maddie started to work her way towards the wall. The brief minute of light had revealed to her that the room held no deadly or revolting surprises. It was time to explore her stone cage.

* * *

What was probably a few hours later, Maddie found herself sitting in a corner, rubbing her temples. Her head was still pounding. For the fifth time in the past while, she carefully reached one hand up to an extremely tender spot on the side of her head. Her stiff hair felt like it was coated in dried blood. She hissed softly as she prodded the area with a fingertip. From what she could tell, nothing appeared to be broken or currently bleeding.

Despite the complete darkness of the room, she had mapped the entire "cell" she was in. She closed her eyes and pictured the dank confines. The room measured no more than eight feet by eight feet and the ceiling was easily within reach of her questing fingers when she was standing. The walls were made up of thick, roughly hewn stones with no windows. The only opening was a large wooden door with no handle. Every stone, bit of mortar, and sliver of wood was slimy with condensing moisture. It seemed very medieval-style movie dungeon.

Then there were the chains. Each corner of the cell boasted two sets of thick, cold chains with manacles on the ends. One corner's chains were used by the ghost-boy; the other sets dangled free. Maddie shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. _Why aren't I chained up?_

_Probably because there's no way for me to get out,_ she smiled slightly as she answered her own question, shaking her head.

She skimmed over her mental picture of the room, once more searching for a possible exit. None of the stones were loose, the door was solid and unmoving, and there were no holes anywhere. In such a tiny room, it hadn't taken long to carefully search every nook and cranny. Rubbing her eyes, her mind desperately scrambled for an escape. _Maybe…_

_What was that?_

Her head jerked up, eyes flicking open at the harsh, echoing sound. The ghost was coughing. She winced in sympathy at the painful sound, then rolled her eyes. The ghost wasn't in any real pain – the thing lacked the nerves necessary for pain to exist. Maddie watched the eyes open, listening to the icy chains rattle in the black. "Sorry," the ghost rasped. "I have been falling asleep a lot. No energy, I guess."

Maddie bit her lip, studying the dimly glowing eyes. That made little sense – the ghost had undoubtedly been feeding from her for several hours. She opened her mouth, then clamped it shut again.

_Ghost Hunting Rule 7: Do not speak to ghosts._

The silence pressed on her mind. Her legs twitched and ached. Her head burned from the wound on the back of her skull. Then her lips moved, almost of their own accord. "Why?"

The eyes blinked a few times, focusing on her. "What?" it asked.

She sighed and repeated herself. Even a half-conversation with a ghost had to be better than absolute silence. Perhaps she could even worm some information out of the spirit. She wouldn't be able to trust most of what it said, but it would at least give her something to do until she could find a way to escape. "Why are you so low on energy?"

After a few seconds of silence, the ghost muttered, "Why do you care?"

Shrugging, she leaned against the wall and crossed her arms. "Got anything better to do?" The eyes slowly shook from side to side. "You collect energy from the ambient atmosphere," she arched an eyebrow, "from _me_, in this case. Why are _you_ so low on energy?"

The ghost's response was a few moments of silence, then a drawn-out, "I haven't eaten in a long time."

Maddie gazed at the thing in astonishment. "Eat? Why in the world would a ghost want to _eat_?" Did the ghost really think she was that stupid?

"I'm not an ordinary ghost."

_Ghost Hunting Rule 4: Ghosts will attempt to trick you into believing they are not dangerous. They are._

"This is where you try and convince me you're different? Not evil like all of your dead brethren?" she drawled with a grin.

The eyes widened. "I'm _not_ evil," the ghost insisted, "and I don't think most ghosts are."

"Right…" Maddie rolled her eyes and was silent for a few beats. Her fingers tapped against the crook of her arm. "So actually explain it to me. Why do you need to eat?"

The green eyes contemplated her before the ghost let out a sigh. "You won't believe me."

"Try me."

The ghost's turn to snort in derision. "Ghost hunting rule number five," he mocked sourly, "don't believe a word a ghost says."

"How…" she trailed off, sitting up straight. Surprise flooded through her mind, making her stumble over the next few words. "How do you know…"

"They're a secret?" The phantom laughed slightly. "They're posted on the refrigerator."

She glared across the dark room, silent as she thought over the implications of that sentence. When she spoke, her voice was dark and accusatory. "How do you know that?"

It blinked. "Uh…"

"You've been in my house?" She got to her feet, a feeling of pure fury settling into her chest. "You've _been in my home?_"

"No," the ghost instantly retorted, it's glowing eyes wide. "I… I just…" It blinked several times, looking around the room like it was searching for some sort of salvation. "I mean…"

Maddie took a step forwards, watching the eyes cringe backwards. The chains rattled loudly in the tiny room. Her breathing was harsh in her ears, mostly masking the quick breaths of the ghost. "Explain. Now."

With a shake of its head, the ghost looked down at its lap. "I can't," he whispered.

"Why not?" It wasn't a question. Maddie walked closer, stooping down so that she was on its level. This close to the ghost, there was a noticeable temperature drop. Tiny goosebumps crawled up her arms.

The ghost seemed to flinch backwards again. "I… you wouldn't believe me even if I tried." His words were a whispery rasp.

"You will," she said darkly, "never enter my home again."

The eyes nodded, wide with apprehension. _Fake apprehension_, Maddie firmly reminded herself. "Yes, ma'am," the ghost breathed.

Nodding slowly, Maddie backed up a few feet and settled back down on the ground. The ghost never took its eyes off her progress. She let the silence fill the room for a few long minutes, assuming her point was now made. "Are you going to answer my question now?" she asked, trying for pleasant.

"What?" the ghost whispered, looking caught off guard by the sudden change of attitude.

Maddie fought down her smile, watching the wide eyes blink rapidly. "Why is it you feel the need to eat?"

The eyes narrowed, studying her closely. "I… it's… a secret," the ghost stammered. It sounded a bit petulant – like a child that had been scolded for stealing a cookie.

"Fine," she said shortly, shaking her head and looking away, leaning back against the cold stone wall. She brought her fingers up to rub at the top of her nose. "If that's how you want to act-"

"It's-" The word tumbled from the ghost's mouth, suddenly cut off as the ghost looked sharply away.

Maddie let there be a beat of silence. "It's what?" she asked gently.

"Nothing," the phantom muttered.

"I'm trying to understand-" Maddie started.

"No, you're not," came the frustrated, quiet interruption. "You're just a bigoted ghost hunter who wouldn't see the truth if it bit her on the nose."

Her shoulders tensed. _How dare this ghost… I'm one of the most equality-based women I know!_ Her mouth opened, but she shut it again with an audible click of her teeth._ It's doing this on purpose, Maddie. Calm down. Don't let it rattle you._

"I'm not an evil, world-dominating ghost," the phantom was muttering to itself. "I'm not and nobody will open their eyes long enough to see it."

_What if…_ Maddie studied what she could see of the pathetic-sounding spirit. The vaguest outline of its body, the broken glowing eyes.

"Of course all the ghosts you meet are evil. They're trying to take over the flipping world. The smart ones stay home." The ghost sulked in the corner, staring at his feet.

_It doesn't have a complicated psyche. It's just a simple electromagnetic pattern imposed on a stabilized plasma matrix. _A small smile drifted onto her lips. _I wonder if I can get it talking again._ She glanced up, noting that the ghost was gazing in her direction again. "You know what conversation does. It helps bigoted people fix their misunderstandings."

The ghost snorted. "You'd have to actually listen. Hear what I'm saying."

Maddie paused, surprised at the small spark of logic, but nodded. "You believe you're not evil. You believe you need to eat."

"_I_ believe," the ghost repeated questioningly, accenting the 'I'.

"Belief means a lot when you're nothing but a psychological imprint," Maddie said with an indifferent shrug. "I know that to be a fact."

"So there's a chance I'm not evil, just because I believe I'm not?" The ghost's eyes were wide, eyeing her like she was some sort of gross biology experiment.

Maddie nodded.

"And so," the ghost continued with an odd, tired twist to its voice, "_everything_ I've said might be true simply because I believe it?"

She hesitated, then tightened her lips and nodded. "Yes."

"Huh." There was the sound of a yawn, then a rustling of chains as the ghost shifted position. It fell quiet, the eyes vanishing.

"So tell me. Why do you need to eat?" She put a cajoling tone to her voice, hoping the ghost hadn't 'fallen asleep'. Her eyes rolled at the thought.

The eyes were dim as they stared at her. "Because I have to."

Maddie scowled. _This is going in circles._ "I just want-"

"No," the ghost interrupted. Its voice was empty. "I've wanted to talk to you for months. I wanted to explain things to you. But all you see when you look at me is an evil, world-dominating ghost. Why should I tell you anything?"

Just for a moment, Maddie felt her perspective move just a touch. _What if it's right? What if I'm missing something…_ She shook her head sharply to clear the idea. _It's trying to trick you. Knock it off._ Staring down at where her fingers should be, she tried to find them, taking a moment to center herself before speaking. "If you don't talk to me, how am I ever going to know what to look for?"

The logic was weak, but this was a ghost. The dead were not well known for their extensive use of logic.

"What if," the ghost muttered, "there were something that wasn't really a ghost? Like a half-ghost?"

"A what?" Maddie looked up at the eyes sharply.

"Half ghost," the phantom repeated.

She forced down a scornful laugh. "Then what's the rest of you?"

The eyes suddenly closed. "You don't believe me," it said sadly.

"Yes, I do," she cajoled. "I believe-"

"Don't _lie_ to me," the ghost snapped angrily, eyes flaring back into existence. Maddie lurched to her feet at the harsh tone, her heart pounding wildly in her chest. Water froze instantly to ice. She shivered in her corner, trapped in the darkness with a ghost.

Slowly the air temperature came up, the ice melting. The ghost's eyes sagged back against the wall, vanishing into the darkness. "Sorry," the ghost whispered.

Her heart slowing back down, Maddie slid down the damp wall and dropped back into her corner, eyes fixed on the location of the ghost-boy. Her breath was loud in her ears.

Silence stretched between them for the longest time. "How can you be only half ghost?"

"Why do you care?" the ghost muttered darkly.

She smiled as she imagined the lean, white-haired figure sulking in the corner. Opening her mouth to respond, she froze. _It's acting so human_. Sshe gazed at the half-opened, sullen eyes. _Much more human than any ghost I've ever met._ Almost painfully, her mind started to churn. _Could there be something to its claim after all?_

A hand flew up to her mouth to stifle the sharp intake of breath at that thought. _No. I do not believe this gob of ectoplasmic energy_. The ghost's eyes swiveled up at the half-sound. The green gaze glowered at her for a moment through the dark air. _Do I?_

"You can't be only _half_ ghost," she finally said. "It's not possible."

The green eyes just stared at her. "If you say so."

Maddie wrinkled her forehead. _It sounded so sad when it said that._ She shook her head sharply. _Ghosts do not have emotions_.

"So." She clicked her teeth together as she tried to decide what to say next. "Why do you need to eat?"

To her surprise, the ghost burst out laughing. The noise echoed oddly in the small room. "Because," was its sole answer.

"Speaking of eating," she said, "when do we get fed?"

The ghost's laugh turned into a morose chuckle. "Never." Its eyes closed.

"What?"

The ghost didn't open its eyes. "I highly doubt our survival is part of the ghost's plan." It snorted, ever so softly. "I was investigating this when I got caught. I do know that something needs to be sacrificed on the full moon." The eyes appeared for a moment. "Does that help?" There was a note of exhausted derision in its voice.

Maddie was quiet, staring at the ghost. _Can I believe what it says?_

Its voice sounded weak and tired. "By that point I won't be strong enough to do anything but be dragged along for the ride. I'll die… and you'll probably be right behind me." It sighed, the chains rattling as it shifted its weight, its voice was little more than a whisper. "I'm going to pass out again." Its voice was barely there. The eyes vanished and the ghost's breathing, which had become labored during their talk, fell back into the simple rhythm of sleep.

* * *

The dark pressed on her as she ran over the things the ghost had said. The first and foremost was its claim of her imminent death. She buried her face in her hands. _Can I believe that_? _And what could I do about it even if I did?_

After a few heartbeats, she pushed the thought into the corner of her mind. There really wasn't anything she could do to escape the room she was in at he moment. Something needed to change before she'd have even a change as escape. Then there was that other thought…

The ghost considered itself to be only half ghost. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the cold wall, wincing when the tender spot on her head tapped against an outcrop of stone. _If it's only half ghost, it's half something else._ She tapped her fingers against her knee. _But what?_

her fingers stopped tapping. Her mind flew back over their conversation. _'We'll be dead.'_ _'I'll die.'_ _'Sacrifice.'_ Eyes opened wide as her thoughts solidified. "It thinks it's still alive," she hissed.

Ghost Hunting Rule 3: The most dangerous ghosts are the ones who haven't accepted their deaths.

_If it doesn't believe it died, then logically it would assume it wasn't a 'real' ghost_. Maddie smiled slightly as the thoughts congealed in her mind. _Believing it was trapped in some odd half-ghost, half-alive state would allow the ghost to accept its ghostly attributes and would still let it think it was 'alive.'_

She gazed at the corner where the ghost hid in the shadows, its actions slowly coming into better focus. _It wants to be human… and accepted. That's why it always attempts to play the hero by fighting off those other ghosts. _Rubbing the back of her neck, she sighed. _That's probably why it has such complex emotions. It still thinks it really possess them._

_And yet…_ She bit her lip as she stared off into the darkness. _I've never heard of a ghost with such realistic emotions. It should be well aware of the 'fakeness' of its emotions. This one… it doesn't seem aware that its emotions are false._

_Could it really be…_ She shook her head sharply, shaking the thought out of her mind. _No. There is no such thing as a half-human, half-ghost._

Chains rattled in the darkness as the ghost shifted in its sleep. Maddie closed her eyes, troubled. _Ghosts don't sleep, _a traitorous corner of her mind whispered. _Ghosts don't eat_.

_There is NO such THING,_ she snapped at herself.

_If you were going to run into something strange and paranormal, you're in the right town._

She tramped down on her thoughts, forcing her head into calm silence. Ten breaths in. Ten breaths out. Water dripped around her, echoing oddly in her quiet mind. _Logic, Maddie. And logic needs information. Fortunately, I have a ghost that seems to enjoy talking._

Her gaze drifted back to the dark corner where the ghost slept. "Ghost?" she whispered, unsure. There was no response. She pushed herself to her feet and carefully felt her way around the room, one hand grazing lightly along the stone wall.

Kneeling down beside the ghost, she reached out and felt for the ghost's shoulder. The jumpsuit was stiff with dirt and grime, ripped and torn. Her fingers drifted up its arm, running lightly over the cold skin. She stopped, startled at the firm feeling of its skin. Every other ghost she'd run into had a misty quality to them. This one seemed almost stable.

How… Her forehead furrowed. It thinks it's alive. To pull off that belief, of course it would need to be more solid than normal. But how? Her fingers brushed over the ghost's cheek, startled by the chill, her brain forcing this new strangeness into the existing laws and theories about ghosts. It would need a highly efficient storage of active ectoplasm. An overactive stabilizing system that is creating a rigid crystalline structure out of the plasma. Possible, but highly energy inefficient.

She reached for its shoulder, but stopped short. _If that's true, than its possible the ghost wouldn't be able to collect ambient energy as efficiently as necessary._ She blinked into the darkness in the direction of the ghost. _It would… starve…_ Feeling the weight of some kind of understanding curl through her mind, she gave the ghost a small shake. "Ghost."

The neon eyes flickered open. For a second it stared in her direction, confusion easy to read in its expressive, unfocused gaze. Then it blinked, focusing on her. "What?"

"I need you to talk to me, answer some questions."

She was less than a foot away from the specter's face. The chill its presence gave off sent goose bumps up her arm. "On one condition," the ghost answered, yawning, "you stop calling me 'ghost.' My name is Phantom."

"Alright." Maddie backed away, sitting down a few feet away. "Tell me more about you."

The green eyes trained on her, laughter lighting them up before the weight of exhaustion darkened them again. "My entire life's story? That could take awhile."

Maddie smiled vaguely. _You don't have a life, ghost. _"You say you're only half-ghost. How did that happen?" She tried to keep her tone light and happy.

The laughter died back out of its eyes. "It's not my favorite story." The chains on its ankles clattered as it moved.

"Please," she said quietly. She wasn't sure anymore how much the ghost could feel of her, but she tried to push the earnestness of her words into her voice. "I'm trying to understand you."

"Perhaps your mind would be better used in trying to figure out how to get out of here." The ghost's voice was soft. The _'I don't want to talk about it'_ clear by its tones.

Maddie crossed her legs, leaning forwards. Her elbows went on her knees and her hands propped up her chin. "I can't come up with a plan until I get more information about this place. I'm out of ideas for now."

The ghost sighed. "I don't have any more information."

Maddie nodded slowly. "Exactly, gho…Phantom. I'm just trying to understand. But if you don't want to talk about it, I understand."

There was a long period of silence. It stretched to the point that Maddie thought the ghost wouldn't say anything. Then, "It was an accident."

Maddie stared at the two glowing eyes, but there was nothing more coming. "An accident?" she prompted.

"I snuck into a place I shouldn't." She could almost hear the shrug. "Something happened, I don't know what. Power surge, maybe. Everything went crazy. It electrocuted me. It… hurt. I thought I was going to die." Its voice drifted off into the quiet realms reserved for painful memories. Its glowing eyes closed.

"Imagine my surprise when I woke up." The eyes glanced up at her. "Of course, I wasn't really the same after that. I figured out I could do ghost-stuff. Walk through walls. Disappear. Fly." Its voice trembled.

Maddie stared at the ghost in amazement. _It sounds so human…_ She curled her toes in her shoes, trying to push that thought out of her head. _Ghosts are NOT human_. The ghost was quiet, seemingly lost in its memories. Her eyes narrowed. _Keep it talking,_ she thought, _find out more information. _"You family… do you ever talk to them?"

The eyes sparkled with a weird inner light. When he spoke, the words came out stuttered, like he was struggling with whether or not to say them. "All the time."

"You actually _talk_ to them?" Her eyebrows wrinkled. _How could a ghost talk to its parents? Why would its parents accept a ghost?_

A beat of silence. "Of course."

"They don't care that you're a ghost?" she wondered.

"They don't know." The ghost shifted and its eyes drifted a little farther away as the ghost leaned back against the wall.

One of Maddie's elbows slipped off of its perch and she jerked before catching herself. "They don't know you're a ghost?" She stared at the ghost in amazement. _That can't be…it's lying to me._

The eyes moved quickly from side to side as the ghost shook its head.

She laughed after a moment. "This would be because you're half _human_, right?"

The two eyes widened and held perfectly still. The raspy sound of its breathing cut off as the ghost froze. "How…" he choked.

_Well, that confirms my theory on how it sees itself, anyway._ "Logic," she murmured, trying her best to sound comforting. "How can you talk to them if they don't know you're a ghost… half ghost? You sure look like one."

The ghost's eyes relaxed slightly. "I can take my human form if I want to."

_Is that possible?_ _What is this ghost, some sort of shape-changer? _"Can I see?"

"See?" the ghost snorted. "Did you notice the lack of lights?" It shook its head again. "And no, my human side is too weak. I would probably die I turned human right now." The ghost was silent for a long time. "I've been in here for a week," it finally continued, "I haven't eaten that entire time. The only thing keeping me going is that fact that I'm in ghost mode right now. I don't need as much food."

"But you still need some," Maddie whispered. Her eyes widened as she finally understood the ghost's situation. _Even if it's not really half human, it believes it is._ _Ghosts are governed by their beliefs. This ghost is starving, scared, tired, lost, and dying._

The eyes nodded back at her, tiredly. The ghost whispered, its eyes vanishing, "I'm going to die here, all alone, and my parents will never know what happened to me. I've been in bad situations before, but this one is so hopeless. And I'm just so tired."

She was suddenly struck by the fact that the ghost before her… the _perhaps _half-human ghost before her… was crying. _Could he be? Could he be more than 'just some ghost'?_ Maddie was silent. _Could he really have emotions? A one-in-a-million chance?_ She wasn't even aware of the fact that the ghost had gone from an 'it' to a 'he' in her mind.

Slowly, Maddie stood up and moved over to where the ghost was sitting. The cold curled through her as she trailed her fingers along the wall. She hesitated a moment before sitting down and putting her arm around him. He shifted slightly so that his head was buried in her shoulder. The strange firmness of his icy body pressed against her did nothing to salve the chaos in her own mind.

She closed her eyes and sat with the ghost-boy for hours, listening to him cry, all the while trying to figure out exactly _what_ this boy was.

* * *

Maddie sighed, stretching her arms out above her head. She was lying on her back on the hard stone floor, her ankles crossed. Bringing her hands back behind her head, she was careful for the tender bruise on the side of her head. Her eyes glazed slightly as she stared off into the dark nothingness of her cell.

In the intense silence, her heartbeat thudded loudly in her mind, her breath rasped in her throat like a jet engine, and her stomach growled from lack of food. Between the thumpings, grumblings, and whisperings of her own body, she could make out the sound of the condensing moisture dripping off the ceiling and running in rivulets down the walls. Her eye twitched every time a drip crashed into the growing puddle beside her head. Chinese water torture indeed.

But more than that, she was searching for the scratchy, unsteady breathing of the cell's only other occupant. However much she was loathe to admit it, that ghost was her only link to the real world; the only thing keeping her sane in the hellish darkness. A harsh cough echoed through the air, chains clinking as the phantom's entire body spasmed. She winced a bit in sympathy. The boy's cough had grown noticeably worse over the past several hours.

"Maddie?" the ghost whispered.

She turned her head to the side, glancing off in the direction of the voice. No glowing eyes met her gaze. "What?" she wondered.

"If I die, what would you tell my family?"

Maddie raised an eyebrow and was silent for a moment. "You're a ghost. You can't die."

He sighed. "You still don't believe that I'm only half ghost?"

"I believe that you believe you are still alive," she said after a pause, "and perhaps that's all that matters."

Twin, neon orbs flickered into existence in the dark. "But," he persisted, "if I die, would you tell my family?"

"Tell them what," she murmured. Suddenly she pushed herself to a sitting position and then rocked herself to her feet. She moved across the room, anxious energy needing to be burned. One hand trailed along the wall and her feet took exactly three steps before twisting on her heel and heading back in the other direction. Three steps, turn, three steps, turn.

"Everything," he said. "How I died? Locked up like an animal in the dark? That I suffered to the end?"

Maddie paused in the middle of her pacing to throw a glance in the boy's direction. "What kind of question is that?"

The boy was silent, only his eyes giving away the fact that he was still awake. "I mean," he finally continued, "you have always wanted to capture a ghost and rip it apart, right?" He hesitated for a second. "You don't really care what ghosts feel or how they are treated?" His voice went up at the end, making that statement into a half-asked question.

"Ghosts don't feel emotions," Maddie interjected softly, pacing again. Three steps, turn, three steps. _Full ghosts don't feel emotions_, she amended in her mind. _This one…_

"Exactly," he insisted. "But humans do. Would you tell my family how I died? Would you put _them_ through that kind of pain?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Because. I need to know." Silence stretched. His green eyes stared at her, praying for an answer. "I need to know if you care."

Maddie bit her lip, avoiding the glowing gaze. _What kind of person does he think I am? Of course I care about humans…_ Turn, three steps, turn, three steps. _I'm coming off as that uncaring?_

"You care about humans," the ghost whispered. "You don't care about ghosts." The eyes fell to the side as he tipped his head. "Why? I need to know why."

She shivered at the question. _He's not trying to ask if I care about humans. He's asking why I don't care about ghosts._ "Ghosts don't have emotions or real thoughts. They don't feel," she repeated lamely. Three steps, turn, three steps, turn.

"What if they did?" he asked. "What if you found a ghost that, for some reason, could feel?"

_Yes, what if there was a ghost that could feel?_ She shook her head sharply at the thought. _Ghost Hunting Rule… _she trailed off in her own mind, her eyes staring at the boy. _What if…_

She sighed. "When my Danny was little, he always used to pretend he was a superhero. He'd tie a towel around his neck and use a spatula for a sword." A bubble of laughter trickled up her throat at the memory. "He'd chase down all the evil 'ghosts' that were terrorizing our house and lock them up in the bathroom." She finally stopped her pacing and slid down to the ground in an easy crouch.

The eyes blinked at her. "Why are you telling me this?"

"You know what he'd do after he had them all trapped? He'd let them go." Maddie smiled at how absurd the thought was. "Every time, no matter how evil the ghost seemed or what it did, he'd always let them go. He said it was mean to keep them trapped. There wasn't a single malicious bone in his body when he was little. There still isn't."

Phantom gazed at her silently. "I'm still not following…"

Maddie sighed. "Perhaps my son knew something at five that I need to learn at forty."

"That everybody – even ghosts – deserve a second chance?"

"Yes," she whispered, closing her eyes. "And that maybe you shouldn't judge someone based off of what he is, but rather who he is."

"So you're trying to say you're reconsidering the whole 'I'm an evil ghost' concept."

Maddie flicked her eyes open and glanced in his direction. The glowing eyes were dancing with barely restrained delight. "I'm trying to say I'm open to learning more about you."

Phantom's smile was so big it made his eyes crinkle. He laughed softly, his chuckle devolving into a harsh cough. "Well…" he rasped when the coughing had subsided, "what do you want to know?"

* * *

Over the next few days, Phantom told her stories. Between steadily worsening coughing fits, he wove together tales about ghosts he had encountered. As each tale drew to a close, Maddie's head would be spinning with questions and theories. Often, after she would ask a question, he would softly laugh at the absurdity of it. She quickly developed a sort of gruding appreciation for the vast amount of knowledge this teenager had about his spectral cohorts.

After the stories he would spin for her, the ghost would lapse into an unconscious sleep, leaving Maddie alone to contemplate the darkness surrounding her. Each time, she would shiver and tuck her arms in close to her. There was nothing to be afraid of in the room – she _knew _that – but the simple fact that she felt so alone was terrifying. Every minute of the dripping, pounding, roaring silence was torture. Soon she was longing for the ghost to wake up to break the monotony of the blackness.

Yet, something always stopped her from shaking to boy out of his restless sleep. Some mothering instinct, perhaps, that knew the ghost needed the rest, despite the fact that her scientific brain kept explaining to her that ghosts didn't rest. So she sat, shivering, in a corner, her mind whirring loudly in the deafening quiet. More often than not, after painfully pushing thoughts of her family out of her head, the ghost in front of her was the subject of her consideration. _Is he what he claims to be?_

Each time, the Phantom would wake up before she could decide.

"Tell me a story," the boy rasped, dissolving into a bout of coughing.

"What kind of story?" Maddie tucked her feet under her and ran her fingers lazily along a strip of mortar in the floor.

"I don't care."

Maddie tipped her head to the side. "Okay," she said softly. _A happy story,_ she thought to herself, _try and cheer him up. _"When my Danny was five, he became absolutely obsessed with making my daughter a cake for her birthday." She smiled at the memory, closing her eyes and tilting her head back. "I mean, nobody in our family can cook very well, Danny included, but he spent over a week planning exactly how he was going to do it, so I couldn't very well tell him he couldn't. He figured out what kind of cake, frosting, and sprinkles to get. He drew all sorts of pictures and grilled everybody he could think of to get their opinions."

Chains rattled as the ghost shifted in the corner. Maddie's eye flickered open, glancing once at the glowing gaze that was riveted on her. "Finally, the day before Jazz's birthday arrived. Jack took Jazz to the park to get her out of the house and Danny and I went to the store, bought all the ingredients and went home to bake." She chuckled. "It was a complete disaster. I'd never made a cake from scratch before, and the recipe was a lot harder than it looked. Anyway, about half way through mixing up the cake, Danny dropped the bowl on the floor. Cake mix went _everywhere_." She paused, her grinning at the vivid memory. "Do you know what Danny did? He sat down right in the middle of the mess and started to cry."

Phantom gave a short little laugh. "I don't remember that," he whispered.

She wrinkled her forehead, but went on with her story, pretending not to have heard. "I did the only thing I could think of doing. I picked up the bowl, with whatever batter was left in it, and tipped it upside down on his head. Left it there, like an oversized hat, and went to get a mop. By the time I got back, Danny was laughing, cake batter oozing down his face."

"Of course, to a five-year-old, it was revenge the second I stepped into the kitchen. He wiped a gob of batter off the floor and threw it at me – hit me right in the face. I tossed some back, the little battle escalating to an all-out war of cake batter. We destroyed the kitchen in a matter of minutes." Maddie leaned back against the cold wall, glancing over at the sparkling, green eyes of the ghost. "You should have seen Jack's and Jazz's faces when they walked in on us cleaning a bit later. It took _hours_ to get all the batter off the walls."

"You weren't mad at him?" Phantom asked softly.

"No," she answered, "never. I would have given anything to have that moment frozen in time and saved forever. For those precious few minutes during the cake war, nothing in the world meant more to me than my son." She lapsed into silence, her mind whirling with thoughts of her child.

"You really miss him."

Maddie bit her lip. "I just can't handle it, sitting here, not knowing if he's dead or alive. If he's safe, or starving, or hurt, or…" she trailed off. A chill tear slipped from her eye. "I want my son back."

"He's alive."

She brought her head up, staring into his confidant eyes. "How do you know?" she whispered.

"He needs to be alive for the sacrifice," the ghost whispered back, closing his eyes.

Goosebumps raced up Maddie's spine at those simple words. She brought her legs up against her chest and hugged them close to her. _Danny…_

Silence stretched in the blackness, broken only by Phantom's hacking coughs. "Everything will be alright," he said suddenly. "Trust me."

_Ghost Hunting Rule 1: Never trust a ghost_. Maddie stared into the darkness, her eyes burning. She looked into his eyes, not caring about how blurry they looked to her. "Trust…" she murmured. _Can I trust a ghost?_

She blinked a few times. _Can I trust _this_ ghost? He seems to trust me… even though I've done nothing but hurt him. _Her stomach churned as those thoughts echoed around her head. _I've hurt him._

The glowing eyes closed, leaving her staring at nothing again, once more alone with her thoughts.

* * *

"You're asking a lot," she said into the blackness, not looking at the neon eyes that had just opened in the corner. A firm conviction had curled up in her chest as the ghost had slept. She curled her fingers tightly into fists and clenched her teeth.

"A lot?" he rasped softly.

"Trust." Water dripped into small puddles in the silence. She risked a glance in his direction. The eyes were staring at her, confusion brimming in the green orbs. "Why should I trust you?"

_Ghost Hunting Rule 1: Never trust a ghost_.

"Why not?" he countered with a cough.

"You kidnapped the mayor a week ago. You've stolen things from stores around Amity Park. You've destroyed buildings and parks…" Maddie fixed her eyes into the darkness where she thought the door was. She dredged up every memory of the ghost, what he had done, how much damage he had caused, and held it in her heart as she spoke. The hatred felt empty. The ghost had wormed its way further into her soul than she had expectd. "You attacked my family."

Phantom sighed. "I can explain…"

"I don't want to know," Maddie cut him off. "I don't want to listen to lies."

"I'm not going to lie to you."

The simple innocence in his voice nearly undid all the work to harden herself against the ghost's lies. Her heart quivered. She twisted her gaze back on him, hoping the glowing eyes would remind her of all her training.

_Ghost Hunting Rule 4: Ghosts will attempt to trick you into believing they are not dangerous. They are._

"All _ghosts_ lie," she said simply.

His eyes flared. "Why the sudden change in attitude?" he snapped. "You were being so nice and now you're suddenly back in 'I'm an evil ghost' mode."

"Because you're just a ghost!" she hissed. "You don't know what it's like…"

"Yes," he interrupted. "I do. I'm only half-ghost, remember?"

Maddie struggled to her feet. "There _is_ no such thing!" she snapped. "You're deluding yourself!"

"No, I'm not!" he insisted, breaking down into a fit of coughing.

She stormed across the small room, her fingertips dragging against the stone walls, and dropped into a crouch, her eyes inches from his. She didn't flinch away from the hurt, sadness, and fatigue in his expressive eyes, although cracks appeared around her heart. In this close proximity, the slight glow of his gaze made her head spin and the chill from his body sent shivers up and down her arms. "Yes," she stated, "you are."

He was silent, staring into her eyes. "Why the sudden change of attitude?" he asked quietly, determinedly.

"It's impossible. I refuse to believe every theory, every experiment, every _thing_ I've ever learned is wrong."

"Not everything," the ghost replied. She could hear the tentative smile in his voice. "You got a lot right. Just… me wrong."

She shook her head and settled back on her heels. "No," she whispered. "Not possible. Ghosts lie and trick and-"

"Yeah, they do."

Maddie glared at the interruption. "_You_ are focused on one thing. Feeding. Trying to steal parts of my life in an endless attempt to relive your own. One you will never succeed at."

The ghost stared at her. "Why would I want to relive anything? And besides, how can _this_," he gestured around, the chains rattling loudly, "be part of some kind of master plan? Starving myself? Chaining myself up in a locked room? Oh yes, this is a _great_ plan."

"Ghosts don't have good logic skills-"

"You got that right," Phantom muttered.

Sitting back, Maddie rubbed at her temples, then over the bridge of her nose. "Ghost-"

"Phantom." The interruption was sharp. "And yes, you're right, I do 'feed' off your emotions." For some reason the voice softened slightly.

There was the sound of chains moving, then a cold hand touched her knee. Maddie shifted uncomfortably, but didn't pull away. That touch undid all the hatred she had strung together. She closed her eyes, knowing she was falling into the ghost's trap and unable to find herself caring.

"Something's bothering you."

"You know? I've never hurt anything. Not even spiders and bugs. I pick them up and put them outside."

There was silence at that. "I don't follow," Phantom said after a long moment.

"Me neither," Maddie sighed, shaking the hand off her knee and getting to her feet.

"I've moved up the scale from glob of post conscious goo to creepy-crawly bug most people squish without a second thought?"

She couldn't help it. She chuckled. "You make my head hurt," she admitted. "Logic refuses to believe something like you can exist."

The ghost made a humming noise. "You and me both," he agreed. "You can run experiments on me later." The eyes narrowed. "With exceptions."

Maddie snorted. "It'd be easier to believe all this if there weren't just one of you."

"Oh, there's not."

The eyes were closed when Maddie's head jerked up. "What?"

One eye opened. "It's a long story." Then the voice seemed to grin conspiratorially. "Want to hear it?"

She slipped back across the room, dropping down right next to him. She could feel the chill emanating off of his body. Their shoulders brushed. "Yes," she murmured, "I would, actually."

Phantom's eyes slid to the side as he tipped his head, glancing in her direction with a curious glint to his eyes. "You're sitting awfully close to a lying, thieving ghost," he reminded her. "What about all your ghost hunting rules?"

"I'm working on revising some of them," she muttered. "Tell the story."

The eyes nodded. "His name is Plasmius. He…" silence fell for a second, "he was in an accident in college. From what I've heard, it was pretty horrible. He was in the hospital for a long time." Phantom closed his eyes and leaned, almost imperceptibly, into Maddie's arm. "He didn't have anybody," he whispered. "His family abandoned him. When he became depressed and lonely, he pushed his friends away and they didn't fight it. They just left. Left him alone."

Maddie shivered. After the past few days, she knew what it was like to be alone.

"After a few years, his mind… it broke." He pressed a little closer to Maddie and shuddered. "A human soul – full of needs and hopes – giving in to a ghost's obsessive desires. More than anything, he wanted everything he was pushing away. He wanted friends… a family." Phantom looked at her, his eyes glistening. "But by that point, his spirit had been corrupted. He didn't know _how_ to have friends and a family anymore." Caught in a fit of coughing, he curled up around his stomach, and it was a few moments before he could continue.

"Plasmius became obsessive about it. More and more he plotted how to _take_ what he wanted. He got everything he ever desired: money, power, fame… but no friends. You can't take friendship. You can't force family." The glowing eyes fixed down towards his feet. "Even though he tries. It's impossible to imagine. Years and years of failure and loneliness."

She wanted to put her arm around his shoulders. If he were any human teenager, she would have. But… he was a ghost…

"He's not a good person anymore," Phantom said, his raspy voice empty and broken. Maddie stiffened as Phantom suddenly leaned his head against her shoulder and sighed.

"Are you okay?"

"I just don't feel good," his voice was soft. "I haven't for awhile. It's probably a fever or something."

Raising an eyebrow, Maddie smiled. "Ghosts can't sick," she reminded him.

Phantom mumbled something under his breath. Slowly, his breathing evened out as he relaxed against her. Maddie shivered and sat there, more confused than ever.

* * *

At some point, Maddie fell asleep.

Hours later, her eyes flickered open. Not that she could tell. It was just as dark with her eyes open as it was with her eyes closed. Absently, she twisted her head to stare into the blackness that cloaked the ghost-boy. He was mere inches from her eyes, yet completely hidden.

She carefully reached up to brush at his hair. It was vivid in her mind; snow white, messy, and forever in need of a haircut. The feel of it was impossibly real – not the misty, insubstantial swirls that were ghost hair. Horribly irrefutable proof that the ghost beside her wasn't simply a normal ghost. Phantom moaned slightly and shifted, not waking up. Slowly, she moved the boy off her shoulder and laid him on the floor before pushing herself to her feet.

Having long since memorized the room, she could pace across the room without putting her hands out before her. Her fingers laced together and came up to tap her lips. Three steps, turn, three steps, turn, three steps, turn.

_Danny…_ her mind whispered. _I need to rescue…_

The pacing paused for a moment, her eyes drifted through the darkness towards where Phantom was curled up on the floor. For just a second, she could picture the ghost – a blob of ectoplasmic goo that could be left behind. Then the image of the boy she'd gotten to know so well over the past few days slammed into its place. She scowled. _I need to rescue them both. I can deal with the ghost - not ghost thing later._ Then she was moving again. Three steps, turn, three steps.

_How?_ She tapped her fingers against her lips, her mind racing. _What do I know?_

_Next to nothing. Phantom doesn't really know what's going on. Or if he does he won't tell me._ Turn, three steps. _All I've gotten is that there is a lady involved. She's going to do some kind of sacrifice to help her take of the world_. An unconscious grin twitched at her lips. _Which is probably a bit of an exaggeration._

She sobered almost instantly. _I need a plan._

Falling back on a life-long strategy for coming up with ideas, Maddie stopped her incessant pacing. Closing her eyes, she imagined a large whiteboard dangling in the air before her. She grabbed her mental marker and started to write. 'Good' went on one side of the board, 'bad' on the other.

_Alright. What can I list – good or bad?_ She bit her lip as she thought.

_I have no weapons of any kind, except my own body_. Mentally, she wrote that on the 'bad' side of her board. Quickly she added: _I'm tired and drained from lack of food and drinkable water_. She sighed. Her own body wasn't going to be much of a weapon. She wouldn't be able to fight for more than a few minutes.

Eyes drifting around the room, she mentally tallied off other things on the board. _Phantom and Danny aren't going to be any help. I have no idea where I am. Whatever is behind that door is a complete mystery. They – whoever 'they' are – could show up at any moment_.

She perused her list, her fingers absently moving through the air. There was a nice column of things under the 'bad' label. Nothing under the 'good' one. _Wonderful._

"Were you making a list?" Phantom's hoarse voice echoed through the room.

Maddie jumped a bit, twisting around to look into his dimly glowing eyes. "How did you know?"

Soft, broken laughter. "You were moving your lips and pointing like you were checking stuff off a chart. You always do that when you make lists."

_Always? How do you know that?_ Suddenly, she narrowed her eyes. "You can see me? Even in this total darkness?"

"Yeah," he said, "I can see pretty well in the dark. One advantage to being a ghost." His luminous eyes were dancing. "I can see about as well as you could if we had a candle in here."

There was silence as she stared at him. Questions were piling up in her head. Before any of them could pull themselves into something she could voice, Phantom spoke again.

"What were you making a list of?" He yawned, neon eyes half-closing.

"I'm trying to figure out how to get out of here. I need to rescue my son."

"Mmm-hmm." The eyes seemed to lift off the ground. Phantom must have sat up. "You won't be able to get out of the room until somebody opens the door from the other side."

Maddie nodded, turning back to her mental whiteboard. "Which is when we'll have to make our move."

"Yeah," Phantom whispered. "We'll have to move."

_Can he even move anymore?_ "We'll think of something," she said. "I'll get us out of here."

"No, you can't," he murmured. After a handful of painful-sounding coughs, Phantom continued. "There's no way you can fight them off. You haven't eaten in days, you haven't slept well either. You're weak and tired."

"I need to do _something_," she insisted. "You're in no shape to fight."

"I can fight." His voice was barely audible over the dripping water and the rasping of his breathing.

She raised an eyebrow. "Oh yeah? How?"

His dim eyes went even more dull than usual as they tracked down to the floor. "I can," he murmured. "And I will."

Walking back across the room, she knelt down and tapped his chin, getting him to look her in the eyes. "How?" she repeated softly.

"It's called stable ectoplasm," he sighed. "You've heard of it."

It wasn't really a question, but Maddie nodded. "Yes. That's what holds a ghost's form together. Active ectoplasm in the energy ghosts use in fights. How does that help?"

"A ghost can, if he really needed to, tap into that energy and use it." The sad, sickly eyes vanished from her sight. "I can hold them off long enough for you to get away."

"Then…" she thought about it, "what would hold _you_ together?"

"You need to get away," the boy whispered without opening his eyes. "I couldn't live if you didn't get away."

"Answer the question," she said, her voice trembling slightly.

"Go home to Jack and Jazz. You won't die here; I won't let them hurt you."

"Phantom…" silence, "answer my question. What would hold _you_ together?"

The eyes were back, glittering with tears. "What does it matter? I'm just a ghost."

Maddie shook her head. There was no way she was letting this thing die now – not before she'd decided if it was really a ghost or not. "No, you're not," she said, going for persuasive. "And you are _not_ dying for me."

The ghost stared into her eyes. "Thank you," he rasped finally.

"For what?" she asked, blinking in surprise.

"For believing me. For trusting me."

Suddenly the door rattled sharply. Maddie twisted around, her eyes widening as she stared off into the darkness. A metallic creak split the air as a key turned slowly in the rusty lock. Her eyes were forced shut as a brilliant beam of light blasted through the crack formed by the opening door.

"Evening helpers!" a female's voice whipped through the room. "Guess what time it is!"

A cold hand found hers and squeezed tightly. "Everything will be alright," he rasped, "I promise."

Then his fingers were ripped from her hand as she was forced to her feet and blindly shoved out the door.

* * *

Squinting through the harsh glare, Maddie's eyes burned and watered. She could barely open her eyes up enough to catch even a glimpse of her surroundings. The fact that she was being dragged up a spiral staircase was obvious. But she wanted to know more. "Where are we going?" she demanded.

A sharp rap on the back of her head made stars jump into her already spotted vision. "Is my son alive?" Another slap to the head. _Questions not allowed._

"Stop that," Phantom's voice drifted oddly in the stairway. Then he yelped as he was hit too.

"Walk and shut up," a man's deep voice commanded. From the sound of it, the voice came from the man holding her arms behind her back.

"Now, now," the woman's voice chided from above them. "They are going to be so helpful, I'm sure we can answer a couple of questions." She tittered. "They have been in the _dark_ for so long, right?"

The man chuckled loudly at the horrible pun. "If you say so, mi'lady."

Maddie squinted up the stairs, her blurry gaze barely making out the tall form of the woman leading them up the stairs. She was just a mass of fuzzy green with a glob of caramel-brown at the top.

"We," the woman said, "are going upstairs to a room I had specially prepared for the two of you. I hope you like it; it's taken weeks of hard work and planning. I was pleased as punch when I found out the resident ghost hero was actually a hybrid. I just _had _to meet him."

"Oh, yeah," Phantom muttered darkly from behind her, "honored, I'm sure."

"As for your son, I'm happy to say he's as alive as usual."

The green blob of a woman was slowly swimming into focus. Maddie could now make out that she was wearing a floor-length, medieval-style dress. The odd caramel blob was actually her hair, carefully coifed on her head. "Why do you need my son and me?"

Maddie twisted her head over her shoulder, peering at the ghost trailing her up the stairs. Phantom was stumbling, his shoeless feet catching on the rough, stone steps. He was just too weak to be walking on his own. A large man was basically lugging the boy up the stairs like a piece of luggage.

"For the ritual!" the lady proclaimed. "It takes two, you see, a parent and a child. A mother and a son. It's perfect!"

Maddie continued to study Phantom. His right arm was coated in dried, greenish blood. His skin was dotted with olive bruises and his cheeks were dark and shallow. Normally clean hair was matted with dirt and blood and his uniform was ripped and torn, hanging off of his skinny frame in rags. Both shoes and gloves were missing, revealing scratched and dirty hands and feet. His lively green eyes were dim and surrounded by heavy, dark rings. If she hadn't known he was a ghost, she certainly would have wondered if he was dead.

The lady was laughing, her voice dashing against Maddie's nerves like nails on a chalkboard. "Imagine, a mere two lives is all it takes for me to rule the world."

Maddie's head jerked around to squint up at the lady. _Two? Danny, me, and Phantom… that makes three…_

She was about to ask when the lady reached the door at the top of the spiral stone staircase. A gloved hand reached out to carefully push the wooden door open. "Come," the woman commanded unnecessarily and swept into the room, her long dress brushing against the floor.

"Whoa…" Phantom breathed when he was dragged into the room. He quirked an eyebrow at the setup of the room, a sarcastic quip jumping to his lips. "Alright, I'm duly impressed."

_He does have a point_, Maddie agreed as she surveyed the enormous room. Gilded columns covered with creeping vines and moonlit flowers rose into the air, holding the massive ceiling high in the shadows. Fantastic stained-glass windows sparkled in the walls, chopping up the moonlight and sending it cascading against the tiled floor in a parade of colors. The floor was a swirling mosaic of blues, greens, reds, and blacks, all pointing to a double circle of gold laid into the floor in the center of the room.

In the center of the area, positioned perfectly on the golden rings, were thirteen candles. Eight blue and red candles were evenly spaced around the outer ring, four black candles and single green one had been carefully set on the inner ring. Each one, except for the lone green candle, were lit and burning brightly. In the dead center of the inner ring was a small dais. A long knife glittered in the candlelight against the dais' black wood.

"First we'll do the boy," the woman ordered. "Bring him!"

As Phantom was yanked towards the rings of candles, Maddie licked her lips. "I don't understand," she asked, "what's going on?"

The green-clothed woman stopped and turned around to face Maddie straight on for the first time. Maddie looked into the familiar features, her heart faltering. "You…" she whispered.

"Yes, me," the woman laughed, her eyes narrowing. "I've been planning this for awhile. Even that meeting we had. You see, Madeline Fenton, I'm here to gain my birthright. My failure of a brother has screwed up… twice." In the vague light of the moon and candles, her auburn-brown eyes seemed to flare a bloody red.

"My family," she continued, her voice tense, "has been owed this for _generations_. It is time to claim the payment for the services my family has rendered." Her manicured, gloved finger shot out to point at the ghost-boy. "_He_ is my key. We have been waiting too long for a ghost-human hybrid to show up. Enough is enough!"

She twisted around on her heel and strode after the man dragging Phantom into the ring. "Tie him up good," she snapped. "He should be weak from lack of food, but I don't want to take any chances."

Phantom glared up at her when he was pushed roughly down on the dais. His lips moved, his raspy voice not echoing in the vast cavern. "Dipstick." Maddie couldn't help the small smile that tugged at the corners of her mouth.

"Is that the best you've got?" the lady demanded as she reached his side. Carefully keeping her long skirts out of the burning candles, she knelt next to the tied-up boy. "I was expecting better from the great Danny Phantom. You are pathetic. How you managed to defeat my brother I will never understand."

He blinked up at her, confusion written in his dim eyes. "Who's your…" he trailed off, his eyes widening. "Freakshow," he breathed.

"Yes, yes," she said, a smile twisting her face, "Frederik. He lost _two _of our family's heirlooms, the idiot."

Maddie stood still, watching everything happen, her arms trapped behind her by the iron-like muscles of the deep-voiced man. _Freakshow_…She glanced down at the ground, remembering the horrified terror in the boy's voice as he had told her stories about Freakshow. Of all the enemies the ghost had ever fought, Freakshow was by far the one that scared him the most.

"But!" the lady continued, her voice light, "after tonight that won't matter. _I_ will be the most powerful person on the planet. Nobody will be able to stop me from claiming my right. I will rule this world." Her smile grew as she watched the ghost-boy's eyes widen. She ruffled his dirty hair, but quickly stopped and stared at her dirty glove with a sneer. She rose from her crouch. "You, my dear hybrid, are my savior. You will make it all happen." Her red eyes drifted across the spacious room to rest on Maddie. "You and dear Madeline here."

Maddie watched in growing horror as the woman turned around and came to a stop behind the green, unlit candle. "Now!" the lady commanded, "Jose, get out of my circle."

"Yes, mi'lady," the man mumbled, hurriedly finishing off the knots holding Phantom in place before stepping out of the circle. The ghost just knelt on the dais, perfectly still, his eyes closed in concentration.

Her green skirts flared as the lady slowly sank to the floor. She mumbled softly under her breath, taking a long match out of her pocket. Striking it against the floor, she brought the flame up to the green candle. "And the young hybrid's life…"

"Belongs to me," Phantom interrupted, his eyes shooting open. They were glowing fiercely. A wave of spectral energy burst out of him, his ropes blasting into tiny pieces.

"No…" Maddie yanked against the unmoving arms holding her in place. "Phantom!"

The ghost rose to his feet, his hands glowing an electric emerald. He raised an arm, a burst of ectoplasm slamming into the lady in green, sending her toppling over backwards. Another blast took out the man that had tied his ropes. Phantom jumped off of the dais and ran towards Maddie, scattering candles with his bare feet.

About halfway across the room, Phantom took to the air. He pulled to a stop beside her, one dangerously glowing hand hovering right over her shoulder. "Let her go," he snarled at the guard. Instantly, the hands holding her vanished.

Phantom released the pent-up burst of energy, throwing the guard backwards into a wall. He turned his head to gaze at her with his glowing, green eyes. "Go! Run! Get help!" he panted. The ghost's body was becoming more transparent with every passing second. Through his chest, Maddie could see one of the guards clamoring back to his feet. Phantom's head yanked around, his spectral eyes tracking the man's movements. "I can't hold them off for long," he snapped. "Go!"

Hesitating for one more second, Maddie reached out and touched the boy's scarred and bloody hand. He glanced at her, confusion in his eyes. "Stay alive," Maddie ordered. "We need to talk." Phantom, a half-grin growing on his translucent face, nodded.

The she turned and raced through the room. A gaudily decorated hallway breezed into view behind a column and she took it, skidding around corners on the slick floor. She was panting heavily, too weak to run for very long. An especially slippery section of tile tripped her up, causing her to skid onto her hands and knees. She paused, her chest heaving. Behind her, Phantom screamed a battle cry. Maddie glanced over her shoulder once before pushing herself unsteadily to her feet.

Three more corners and an exit came into view. Two men, both muscular and wielding wicked-looking sticks, were blocking the way out. She slid to a sudden stop on the waxed floor, carefully keeping her balance. "Move," she commanded. The two men glanced at each other, smiled, and shook their heads. "Then I move you," she hissed, settling into a fighting stance.

Suddenly, Phantom was there, appearing out of a wall. He flew straight into the two men, throwing them out of the way. Sinking to the ground next to the door, he gasped for breath. "Go!" he whispered when she made it to his side.

Maddie knelt down beside him. He was barely visible. She reached out, her fingers going straight through his shoulder. _He's noncorporeal_, her mind muttered to her. "Phantom," she said softly.

The boy looked up at her, tears in his dull, lifeless eyes. Just for a second, something flickered in his eyes, a tiny bit of emotion. "I'm sorry," he cried, "I can't help you anymore. You're on your own."

"No… you'll be fine," she whispered. "Come on, let's get out of here."

Phantom shook his head sadly. Then his eyes widened, looking over her shoulder. "No," he breathed. He turned his gaze to her. "Run!" he screamed.

Maddie glanced over her shoulder. Men were tearing down the corridor, batons swinging dangerously. "Not without…" she trailed off as her head spun back around. She was alone. "Phantom?"

With one final glance over her shoulder, Maddie pushed herself to her feet and ran.

* * *

Four day later, Madeline Fenton was sitting in her own kitchen, staring down at her cold cup of cocoa. The tiny marshmallows had long since melted, leaving odd swirls in the dark, thick drink. Emotionally drained, she wasn't thinking; she wasn't feeling; she wasn't _anything_. She was just staring. The cocoa was an infinitely more desirable a subject to contemplate than the thoughts that were warring in the back of her mind.

She leaned back against the counter, feeling the dull edges press into her flesh, her gaze locked on the liquid in her cup. Unbidden, memories swirled through the cocoa, shimmering into her mind. A tear trickled down her cheek as she remembered…

Maddie had stumbled through the woods for over a mile until she had found the highway. She had been extremely bruised, bloodied, and scratched by that time. Vaguely amazed that the men hadn't followed her and beaten her to death yet, she had flagged down a passing car to call for help.

After being trucked off to the hospital, it had taken hours to find out what had happened to the lady and her associates. The entire time the doctor had prattled on about dehydration, nutrient deficiencies, and infections, she had been staring at the door, waiting for someone to come in with news.

Jack and Jazz had basically flown through the door, both of them embracing her in a huge hug, demanding to know what had happened. Maddie had just shaken her head, silent, her eyes glazed. The doctor had taken the two away to talk to them when the police officer walked in the door.

The lady, Jessica Oscura, and her six men had all been found and taken into custody. Somehow, they had all been knocked out and tied up when the police arrived. Maddie had gazed into the man's blue eyes and demanded to know if her son or Phantom had been found. The man had shaken his head, his mouth moving, asking questions. She hadn't heard a word of it.

Later, when she had been questioned, the lady in green had only smiled, refusing to talk. "Danny Fenton? Phantom?" she had finally said, "What does it matter? He's dead by now."

Searchers had combed the entire area multiple times. Every small store room and shed had been meticulously turned upside down. As time passed, the thoughts of finding either of the boys had dwindled. Last night the phone had rung: they were calling off the search. They wanted to declare Danny Fenton legally dead. He had most likely starved to death in a dark room with no way out.

The paper this morning had declared Phantom a hero, giving him credit for Maddie's survival. After setting the paper on the kitchen table, Jack, Jazz, Sam, and Tucker had cornered her. They had made her talk, made her bring back memories. So she told them. She finally told them everything.

She told them about the dark, that terrifying blanket of shadows. She told them about the deafening silence that had tried to drive her insane. She told them about the ghost that had changed her life. She told them about the sacrifice, and about how the boy had died to save her.

By the end of the tale, Jazz, Sam, and Tucker were crying just as hard as she was. Jazz hadn't even made it to the end of the tale, she had fled to her room and locked the door, sobbing. She was probably still there. Sam and Tucker had stood there, tears trickling down their cheeks, until the very end. Then, holding each other up, they had walked out the back door, silent.

Jack had waited until it was just the two of them before scooping her up in an enormous hug. He just held her, rocking back and forth, letting her cry. When she had cried herself out, he had made her the cup of cocoa and had gone down into the lab.

And so she stared into the cocoa, her mind reeling with the events of the past few weeks. _My baby…_ she whispered to herself. _He's dead. Is it true?_

Finally raising her head, she glanced around the dimly lit kitchen. _I need to get out, I need to go someplace._ Her mind whirled. _I want to see the light_.

Carefully setting her untouched cocoa on the counter, she picked up the keys to the RV and headed out the door. She moved as in a daze, her mind blank and swirling. _Where to go?_ she wondered. Not having an answer, she slid into the driver's seat and pulled out of the driveway. _Anywhere…_ her mind replied after a few blocks. _Drive until you get there._

Streets passed by her fogged mind. She breezed back several parks and sunny grassy knolls. Still she drove, miles clicking away softly on the odometer. Over and over she traversed Amity Park, searching for something her heart was telling her was out there. Somewhere.

The RV's engine finally sputtered to a stop in a rather down-trodden section of town. With a sigh, Maddie tapped the gas gauge. _Empty_. She sat back in the driver's seat and closed her eyes. _Is this where I want to be?_

Her eyes flickered open at an odd beeping noise. For a few moments, she sat still, listening to the mechanical beep. "That can't be…" she whispered. Slowly she leaned forwards, her eyes searching out the ghost radar among the many devices hotwired into the dashboard. There, just at the edge of the screen, there was a tiny blip.

Eyebrows wrinkled as she gazed at the radar. "This is set up to track Phantom's ectosignature." She blinked down at the blip on the screen, then reached out and tapped it with a fingernail. The blip didn't go away. "It's picking up Phantom." The gears in her mind churned on this thought for a second.

Suddenly her eyes sprang wide open. "Phantom's alive!" She yanked her seatbelt off, snagged the survival kit and the portable ghost tracker out of the back, and jumped out of the RV.

"Beep, beep, beep," the tracker announced as it tuned in to Phantom's ectosignature. Stumbling a bit from her still-sore leg, she raced across a parking lot towards a set of abandoned apartment buildings. "Beep, beep, beep," the tracker picked up speed as she neared the ghost's position.

Maddie gazed at the building before her. Ignoring the "condemned" sign, she ducked through an opening and headed down the hallway. The tracker led her up a set of crumbling stairs to the second floor, and then down a slowly rotting hallway. "Beepbeepbeepbeep," the tracker chimed incessantly when she pointed it at a closed door with an ancient, brass "7" nailed to it.

Whatever the tracker was picking up on, it was in this room.

Her arm refused to move to grasp the door knob. _What's in there? Phantom's remains? Something better? _She shivered, _something worse?_

Finally, her hand trembling horribly, she pushed open the disintegrating door and walked into the dark room.

* * *

Maddie gazed into the room in horror. Dark shadows lurked in the corners, casting their long fingers across the floor. She bit her lip and took a step backwards. _Not the dark…_

But she saw him. Curled up in a ball, lying on the floor, was a boy. His messy, dirty, white hair was hanging in his face. His outfit was ripped and dirty, barely covering the cuts and bruises that marked his body.

"Phantom," Maddie breathed, dropping the survival kit and the ghost tracker to the floor. She raced to his side, kneeling down on the floor. Two fingers brushed against his cheek as she studied his face. The ghost-boy was transparent; his ragged breathing was weak and faltering.

"Phantom?" she whispered a bit louder, pushing his dusty hair out of his eyes. _Please be alright… Don't make me loose them both…_

Two green eyes opened slightly, staring up at her. They were dull and lifeless. "What?" the boy whimpered. "I want to sleep."

"No, you can't sleep." Maddie gently shook his shoulder when his eyes drooped closed. "I'm here to help you."

"How," he rasped. His arms twitched as he tried to move them. "Just leave me alone."

"No." Maddie rustled through her emergency kit for a bottle of water. She tipped Phantom's head back and poured some water into his mouth. He coughed, but swallowed. "You saved my life," she murmured. "You're a hero. It's my turn to save you."

His green eyes stared into hers. "You think I'm a hero?" He sounded speechless.

"Yes." She smiled at him, her worried eyes drifting over his withered form. "I'm going to get you out of here. You'll be fine." A tear trickled down her cheek. "Everything will be alright, just like you promised." She poured him another mouthful of water.

Maddie turned around and rummaged through her emergency pack for her cell phone. Behind her, she could hear Phantom push himself up onto one elbow. "You believe me?" His voice trembled as he spoke. "You don't think I'm just some stupid ghost?"

"Of course I do." She said it absently, not even contemplating it. Deep down inside, she believed him and was finally ready to admit it.

_There it is! _Maddie yanked out the cell phone and sat for a moment, her mind twisting as it tried to figure out who to call. She was gazing so intently at the phone that she almost missed with Phantom said next.

"Then I owe you an apology."

"Why?" she asked, not taking her eyes off the phone.

"For lying to you." A flash of white light caught her attention and she twisted around towards the half-ghost. The cell phone clattered to the ground out of nerveless fingers as she stared at the (now human) boy.

"DANNY!"


	2. Shadows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danny may have saved his mother from the darkness, but can he save himself from the shadows that lurk around him?

The green dress flared as she sank to the floor. "Traiga mi destino en la **Luz**, fuera de **Sombras**, y poderes de **Oscuridad** vendrá," she mumbled softly under her breath. A long match appeared almost magically in her fingers. She twirled it in the air, continuing to whisper under her breath before striking it against the floor. It hissed to life. She brought the flaming match up to the candle's wick. Inches away from completing the ritual. "And the young hybrid's life…"

"Belongs to me," Danny interrupted. Reaching deep inside himself, his breath caught in his throat. Green eyes flared with renewed life, his pupils vanishing as his vision faded to an emerald-tinged world. From his painful crouch, he focused on the woman kneeling before him.

_My soul is mine_, he snarled to himself as he built up a huge charge of energy. He released it in sharp waves that radiated in every direction. As the ropes disintegrated around him, he gasped in pain. It felt like someone had thrust a red-hot poker through his stomach and starting ripping out pieces of his insides.

Panting slightly, he glared at the lady who had brought this on him. Locked him the dark. Threatened his life. Tried to take over the world. She seemed frozen, matchstick an inch away from the green candle's wick, her reddish eyes wide with surprise. Danny pushed himself to his feet, wavering slightly. The lack of food made his head spin dizzily.

"Phantom!" A female's voice echoed through the hall.

The boy wiped his head around, his electric eyes focusing on a woman wearing a dirty blue jumpsuit. She struggled against the large man holding her arms. _Mom... no…_

The sight caused a new wave of fear and anxiety that made the energy around him flare. Grimacing at the new level of pain that twisted into his stomach, he swiveled his head back to the lady in green. _It's her fault_, his mind whirled. _It's all her fault_.

_She threatened me. She threatened my family. She was going to kill my mother!_ Fury filling his mind, he brought his hand up, a fatal dose of ectoplasm sparkling between his fingertips. The flickering green energy cast her features in a jade glow, her red eyes becoming a much more human brown. Danny stared at her, watching her eyes fill with fear and terror.

_She's just a human_, a corner of his mind whispered. The bright glow faded just before it left his fingers, zapping the short distance between them and catching the lady in the shoulder. Her scream cut off as she collapsed to the ground, unconscious. Danny stared at her body, shaking in anger. _You deserve worse than this._

"Hey!"

Danny's head snapped around to one of the guards. A large, Hispanic man had his hand half-raised in the air, his eyes flickering between his boss and the young half-ghost. His hand reached for a gun, and Danny used the excuse to channel more energy into the next blast. The guard was thrown against the wall, his head making a sickening noise as it hit.

Pain stabbed through him, his body loudly protesting the use of energy that Danny simply did not have. Biting his lip, he funneled the agony into motion. Stumbling off the dais, trembling at the emotions and energy flooding through him, he raced towards his mother. The carefully arranged candlesticks scattered under his feet.

His legs started to give out. Clenching his teeth, Danny threw himself into the air, his flight uneven, his entire body throbbing with the effort. Jerking to an unsteady stop in front of his mother and the guard holding her down. "Let her go," he snapped. Waves of needles swarming through his body as he yanked more energy into being, forcing his hand to a deadly glow.

The guard's eyes widened. His hands went to his belt, scrambling for the gun.

Danny screamed in pure pain and anger and sent a blast of energy into the man's face. The man shrieked and stumbled backwards, collapsing in a writhing pile. Tearing his eyes away, Danny tried ignore the aching emptiness that was creeping into the very core of his body. He turned to his mother. "Go!" he panted, glancing into his mother's eyes, "Run! Get help!"

She was staring at him, eyes wide. When she didn't move, he raised his hand point the way out. "M…" he trailed off, staring at his fingers in surprise. He could see straight through his hand. Gazing at the back of his hand for a second, eyes focused on his mother's expression _through_ his hand. Her eyes weren't looking at him… they were looking _through_ him…

Danny spun around. The first guard clamored to his feet, a bloody hand clamped against his head. Watching the man, eyes wide, mind whirling, he snapped at his mother. "I can't hold them off for long." _If I can hold them off at all._ When his mother just continued to stand there, watching him. "Go!" he screamed.

She hesitated just one more second, reaching out and grabbing Danny's hand. He blinked, glancing down. It felt weird; her warm, solid hand against his. "Stay alive, we need to talk," she commanded.

Looking up, he met her eyes. A shiver of hot energy flickered through him and a grin slid onto his face. He nodded, then turned away from his mother.

Listening to her race out of the room, Danny watched the man stagger towards the gun glittering in the candlelight. He screamed, a wordless challenge full of terror, pain, and anger, and reached for the energy inside of him. A ball of ectoplasm swirled into existence slowly, dragging icy claws through his brain. Releasing the sphere as soon as it was fully formed, he collapsed to the floor.

Barely able to push himself to his hands and knees, he shut his eyes and let a groan slip through his clenched teeth. _I can see through my eyelids_, he wondered through the pain. His trembling arms finally buckled, sending him the rest of the way to the floor.

He curled up, his stomach twisting, his brain burning, every muscle shrieking in protest. _Is this-?_ A wave of stings blasted through him, sending his thoughts scattering like puzzle pieces. Everything vanished in a wave of pain except for one thought.

_Oh, please just let me die… let me die... let me die..._

"You thought you could win, hybrid?" a voice sneered in his ear.

Danny turned his head to peer upwards through the pain. It was the lady.

"I am better than you," she continued, seemingly oblivious to the hatred starting to glow in Danny's eyes. "You are disease; a blight on humanity. But a useful blight. You can't even stand, can you?" She laughed.

Her eyes were wild as she held out that green candle and set it between them. "**Luz**," she whispered, pulling out another match. Crazy light was glowing in her gaze. "**Sombras**." She struck the match against the floor. It sizzled to life. "**Oscuridad**." She touched the light to the candlewick.

The candle burst into light, the flame glowing a brilliant green. There was a beat of nothing happening, then Danny gathered his thoughts enough to mutter, "That's it? Your brother changed all of reality and all you do is light a candle?"

Her smirk was tinged with insanity as she leaned forwards, her nose inches from his. "Your life is mine now," she whispered. "Don't underestimate me."

Pulling a small walkie-talkie out of a pocket, she got to her feet. The flickering green candle sputtered. "Charlie. Rob." She waited, static crackling on the radio.

"Yup." A thick voice hissed through the tiny speaker.

"The creature's mother is headed your way. Stop her."

"You need her awake?" The man's voice was emotionless.

"The ceremony has started," she said with a laugh. "She doesn't need to be _alive_."

The voice crackled through the static. "Copy that."

_There were more than two guards!_ Danny's mind raced, horror sweeping through him. _No!_ He gasped in agony as he pushed himself to his hands and knees. _Mom!_

"Yes see, blight?" Jessica Oscura purred. "I win."

"No," he whispered. His eyes narrowed as he glared at her. "You can't win."

"Why not?" she laughed, turning her back on him.

Danny looked down at his almost completely transparent hands. The edges of his arms blended into the dark shadows marring the floor. _Can I do this? _His eyes closed, an image of his mother being brought back here, her throat being cut, dying… _I have to._ His fingers curled into fists, his fingernails dragging across the stone floor. _And I will._

A snarl transformed his face. "Because I said so." Energy swirled around him, yanking at his body as it zapped and sizzled in the air. Biting back a howl at the pain, he formed the energy into a blast and sent it flying into the lady's back.

The world started to fall apart. Danny's eyes jumped down, watching himself dissolve into nothingness.

_No!_

He held perfectly still, trembling as he forced his body back into reality. Barely able to remain upright, he shook as he fought off the panic that was trying to envelope him. He'd felt, just for a moment, an intense emptiness. A void so vast and silent that even a brief glimpse had seared itself into his memory.

Finally, licking at his lips, he took a deep breath. _I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay_, he chanted silently. Pushing himself unsteadily to his feet, Danny staggered across the room. Jessica Oscura was lying in a puddle of green skirts and caramel curls, blood from a cut on her forehead trickling onto the waxed floor. He stood there, weaving drunkenly, watching her breathe.

_Just die…_

The image of his mother in the same position curled through his mind. "Mom," he whispered, tears in his eyes. He body sank to the floor even as he thought about saving her. His head dropped to tiles. Pressing his forehead against the cold mosaic floor, he closed his eyes and let his churning emotions take him over.

_I can't even move. How can I save her?_

His breath rasping in his throat, Danny found his body had nothing left to give. He could do nothing but pray for her safety.

* * *

Danny knelt, his mind tortured with images of his mother dying. Slowly he brought his head up, staring at the flickering, green candle. _Stupid candle_, he hissed in his mind, too tired and aching to actually speak. _What can I do?_

_I need to rescue her,_ _but how?_ His brain refused to answer. He dropped his head back to the floor, darkness swirling around the edges of his vision with just that movement.

A picture of his weakened mother not able to fight off the guards all by herself flooded into his mind. _Stop that_. _She's a ninth degree black belt. She can handle anything._

Nevertheless, more pictures slid into his head, digging into his tired body like needles. In many ways, they were worse than the pain. "Fine," he whispered aloud, raising his head to stare at the hallway. The darkness clawed at his sight.

Pushing himself to his feet, he stood perfectly still, swaying. He swallowed harshly, fighting back the nausea that swirled through him. Carefully, he slid one foot forwards. He could see the floor through his legs. Fighting off a wave of terror at that, he forced his eyes upwards, focusing on the door. "I can do this."

Step by step, Danny wove his way across the room. He reached the wall, following it into the black hallway. After a few feet, he paused, leaning against the wall to rest.

"Ah!" he yelped, tumbling through the solid wall. He lay on the floor in the dark hallway, halfway through the wall, blinking in confusion. _I'm not solid enough._ A morose chuckle trickled out of him as he staggered to his feet once more. _Permanently intangible._ Doing his best to push the aches and pains out of his mind, he struggled across the hall. Ignoring the next wall completely, he simply walked through it.

A few walls later, he heard it. "Move," a tired voice commanded. Danny held still, his breath lodged in his throat. The female voice continued. "Then I move you."

"Mom," he rasped, throwing himself through the last wall, knowing that he was too drained to be much help. Two men appeared right before him, glowering down the hallway. One of them raised a gun, the barrel sparkling in dim sunlight.

Danny stared at them, yanking more energy out of his soul. His entire body beginning to unravel, he focused the slight bit of energy into his arms. Daggers of pain sliced along his arms and into his brain. The glow of energy was barely visible. _I have to make this count…_

He threw himself at the guards. His fingers reached out, swirling energy at his fingertips, and he clawed at their faces. Fingernails found soft tissue. Energy flared. Caught off guard, the two guards screamed. They collapsed, pawing at their eyes, smearing thick streams of blood around on their faces.

Danny fell on top of them – fell _through_ them, actually – and closed his eyes in agony. _Breathe,_ he commanded, the pain wreaking havoc in his mind making it impossible to do anything.

He used his arms to pull himself out of the men's writhing bodies. Unfocused eyes flickered up to where his mother was standing, staring at him with a look of terror on her face. "Go!" he gasped, making a half-hearted effort to point out the door. His eyes caught a glimpse of his hand as it moved. Nothing more than a vague outline.

Tears prickled in his eyes. The ever-present pain started to slowly recede. Almost in awe, he raised his hands before his face, staring down at the blurry outlines. The throbbing, stinging feeling vanished completely a few moments later, leaving him feeling like he was floating a mile over his body.

_This is it_, he thought again, not even really able to sigh anymore. His body was becoming more transparent by the second. He clenched his fingers, feeling the distant pain of the movement, barely able to see his fists. Something huge and vast and powerful was closing in on him, curling around him. _This is what it feels like to die_.

Anger, frustration, and hatred drained out of him. It was nothing compared to the emptiness. Caught in his own thoughts, he didn't even notice his mother until she poked her finger through his shoulder. He glanced up at her, feeling a warm glow in his stomach when he looked into her eyes. _At least she'll be fine_.

"I'm sorry," he rasped. He knew he should be feeling pain and sorrow, but this empty, distant feeling was too pervasive. "I can't help you anymore. You're on your own." The words were like the wind, soft and gentle and barely audible.

"No… you'll be fine," she whispered, her eyes hard and determined. "Come on, let's get out of here."

Danny merely shook his head. _No, I won't. But that's okay._

His eyes focused over his shoulder. Two new men were rounding the corner and dashing towards them. Danny felt a distant cold finger twist into his stomach. _Fear? _"No…" He looked up at his mother. "Run!" he screamed, praying that it was loud enough for her to hear.

She hesitated a moment longer, glancing over her shoulder. "Not without…"

While her head was turned, Danny called on the last of his energy, forcing himself invisible. Maddie's eyes came back around, looking for him. "Phantom?" She crouched there for a few more heartbeats, Danny staring invisibly into her eyes with tears in his eyes.

Finally, she ran.

* * *

Danny turned his eyes to the two men barreling down the hallway. N_o._ He let go of the invisibility, but his body never swirled back into existence. _I've used up too much energy_...

The emptiness was numbing his mind, calming the terror that kept trying to claw its way in. He blinked at the Hispanic men, a small smile on his face. _I have to do something_, his mind whispered evenly, his ears still able to pick up the sounds of his mother racing through the woods.

_This is going to hurt._

He closed his invisible eyes, a silent breath coming into his nonexistent lungs. Slowly, calmly, he focused. Deep down inside of him, he felt the power of his ghost life. It fizzled weakly, not at all like its normal, cold, flaming urn of power. _It's dying. _He reached for it, his mental fingers probing the frozen embers of his spectral soul carefully.

Quicker than thought, yet slower than molasses, he brushed the splinters of his ghost out of the way, uncovering a warm ball of energy underneath. Danny picked it up in his mind, cradling it close to him. It flickered and fizzled in his fingers, hot tendrils of power curling through him. This was no ghostly energy. This was never meant to be used, this thing at the very core of his being. _My human soul_.

_My last chance at living_, his brain murmured. _If I use this up, I'm gone for good._ He blinked down at the incredibly tiny ball of energy, tears trickling out of his invisible eyes.

_Mom._

Without another thought, he squashed his mental fingers together, the thin shell of the ball crumbling away. White-hot power flooded through his body. He screamed in pain, thrashing out with arms that were abruptly visible again. Sound became real, the scream wrenching itself from his throat. His body flickered back into existence. The emptiness popped and vanished, the searching pain of earlier slamming into him.

Forcing breaths in and out of his lungs, he cracked open his eyes. The two guards were ten feet from him, holding still in the shadows and watching him. Danny tried to grin, pushing himself to his feet, taking a trembling step towards them.

The men backed up. One reached for a gun.

Affixing a menacing leer on his face, Danny called energy to his palms. He forced himself to laugh through the prickling, tingling, _extremely_ painful feeling that swept own his arms. White lightning sizzled around him, jumping from his hands to arc over his body.

One guard dropped his gun and took another weak-kneed step backwards. "Un ángel… imposible."

Danny held out his hand, white-bright lightning fizzling at his thought. It blazed away from him, bolts of light slicing through the darkened hallway to strike the two men. They tumbled to the floor, unconscious, their clothes and hair smoking.

Behind him, the two men who had been clawing at their eyes fell silent. Danny glanced back, watching bits of smoke curling up from their bodies as well.

He found himself laughing, light-headed, and dizzy. He leaned back against the wall and gazed out at the semi-lit night. His mother wasn't there. _Perfect._

He sank down to his heels, his back scraping against the cold wall. Sighing, he pressed his palms into his eyes, sparks jumping to life. Deep inside, his soul was dwindling away, keeping him alive – but not for much longer. He could feel it, like a battery on its final charge, beginning to flutter and spurt. Unlike a battery however, there was no way he could just plug in his soul and let it recharge. _No returns, exchanges, or refunds_.

Danny glanced up when one of the guards moaned and shifted. _They can't wake up yet_. He glanced at the still night. _She's not far enough away._

Pushing himself to his feet, he moved over to kneel next to the guards. Breathing heavily at the exertion, he grabbed the coil of rope attached to one of the guard's belt. "Now…" He shrugged the rope onto his shoulder, reaching down to grab one of the guards by the shoulders and drag him back to the high-vaulted room.

After just a few steps, his stomach twinged. He dropped the man, clutching his stomach with his arms. "Ow…" A wave of panic swept through him as he felt the energy keeping him alive splutter and hesitate. _Okay, I won't do that._ He slowly straightened, his eyes taking in the heavy men with a groan. "I need to do something."

He yanked the rope off his arm and stared at it for a moment, then reached down to riffle through the guard's utility belt. A grin flickered into his face as he yanked a knife out of a random pocket. He snicked it open and quickly sliced the rope into pieces. Tossing the knife away into the darkness, he leaned down to tie the man's arms together.

"Better," he whispered. "It won't hold them long, but hopefully long enough."

It took just a few more minutes to tie up the other men. "It's your own fault, you know," he informed the unconscious lady as he tied her arms behind her back. "You kidnapped my mother. What was I supposed to do?"

She didn't answer.

"Speechless, I see," he mocked, letting her fall back to the tile with a clunk. He cocked his head to the side. "I hope that's as uncomfortable as it looks." He brushed a bit of hair out of her eyes. "Get everything you deserve, Jessica," he whispered.

He turned, wanting to leave this place, but he paused at the sight of his reflection in the huge stained-glass window. It was a broken reflection that made him look like a Picasso painting. Danny took a step forwards, crackling lightning flaring around him.

Catching sight of the white-hot energy twisting around him, Danny stopped, his eyes wide. The lightning coiled around him and arced over his head. Finally he laughed, his tired chuckle echoing in the vast room. The white bolts of energy flared around him like wings: huge, white wings of power. Danny raised one hand, palm outstretched, watching the energy curl forwards like wings beating. _Un ángel._

Letting the energy fade away, he shook his head. He turned away from his reflection, heading back down the hallway. Stepping carefully past the four unconscious guards by the entrance, he glanced down at his hand. Once more, he was fading into invisibility. He sighed, stepping out into the moonlit night.

A soft breeze wandered through the area, brushing his hair against his forehead. That distant flying feeling was sliding back into his head, pushing the aches and sad thoughts away. Almost without thought, he drifted into the field, finding a small clearing in the tall grass. He lay on his back, crossing his arms behind his head as a cushion, and stared up at the sky.

_My family is safe_, he thought. The cold vastness was back, starting to prickle his fingers and toes. It tickled against his thoughts like a small fly, barely noticed. _And now I'm going to die._ He couldn't feel the fear that should be coursing through him. He was just calm.

The stars winked down at him. He traced the constellations with his eyes, waiting for the end. _I wish_… his mind trailed off. Dreams of traveling to the stars were gone, shattered months ago with the accident that had left him half alive. _But still. I wish…_

White-hot energy faded, slipping through his fingers. Danny closed his eyes, marveling at the feeling. It was like dropping off a building and flying up into the sky at the same time. He plummeted through space, his mind soaring away from him.

Silent, a lone tear tracing down his nearly invisible cheek, Danny vanished into the air. His body fell apart into a greenish-white mist, the single tear dropping through what remained of him and splattering against the ground.

The breeze blew softly through the clearing again, but this time found no dirty hair to muss. Instead, it ruffled the grass he had crushed when he laid down. The wind picked the mist and scattered it into the world. After only a moment, there was no sign anybody had ever been there.

However, _something_ noted his passing. In the gilded, vaulted room with the tiled floor, the green candle suddenly snuffed out and a curl of smoke swirled lazily through the air. The wisp drifted over to the unconscious Jessica Oscura and settled down around her head like a wreath. Even dead to the world, a slight smile drifted onto her lips.

* * *

The emptiness brought pain with it.

It seared through his body like a million shards of hot glass, slicing through him. Danny clenched his teeth as he felt his body shred into a million pieces. He muffled the screams of pain that were twisting in his stomach, begging to be released. _Stop_, he begged. _Please!_

The pain kept coming, kneading into his brain. The crystals of agony dug into his body, twisting and turning, working their way towards the very center of his being. He felt his body falling apart, pinpricks of pain flooding through him in a hellish counterpoint to the shards of pain.

Finally his mouth opened, a shriek ready to lash into the world, but he no longer had a mouth to scream with. Danny twitched, trying to curl up into a ball, but his body no longer existed. His mind was left open to the painful attacks, and the shards pressed their advantage, slamming into the remains of his soul.

His mind screamed and thrashed in the horribly vast emptiness of the afterlife, trying to escape the pain. _Leave me alone!_ He pushed away from the agony, his mind brushing against one of the crystal shards.

_"Danny." Sam's voice swirled through the blackness, whispering in his ear. "Promise you won't leave me?" Her amethyst eyes appeared, blinking at him through the dark. The rest of her soon followed, her head tipped to the side, her rare, beautiful smile flickering across her face._

Then she was gone. Danny fought his way free of the crystal shards for a moment, reaching for the place where Sam had been. _Sam… don't leave me!_ He screamed as the agonizing shards sliced into him again. Without noticing, his fingers trailed across the smooth surface of another crystal, sending white-hot prickles of pain growing in his mind.

_"You are a hero," his mother laughed, fading into existence. She was worn and depressed, an image from just a few days ago as she sat in the dark._

_Mom!_ he yelled as she vanished. _Come back!_ Anger flickered through him, pushing back at the emotionless dark. He touched a third crystal without thinking, yelping at the suddenly influx of agony.

_His dad was there, grinning enthusiastically, waving his latest invention in the air. "I'm proud of you, son!" he bellowed, the entire school hearing his boisterous words._

The crystals held back. The pain slowed. Hesitantly, he hung in the abyss, gazing the crystal shards hovering around him, waiting. Slowly, he reached out one mental finger and trailed it along the crystal's razor edge, clenching his jaw at the pain that stabbed up his arm.

_"Here you go, Danny," Jazz said, holding out his lost homework. "You deserve it, you know? Being the hero all the time." She smiled at him, ruffling his hair._

He gazed at the thousands of crystals. _My family?_ He stroked one more crystal, his mind still working on figuring this out. In a wave of pain, the image appeared.

_Tucker swirled into view, his red beret crooked. He grinned at Danny, the scratch on his face dripping blood down his chin. "Dude, we're your friends. We're here to help you."_

_No. Not anymore. _Danny pulled away from the crystals, pushing himself farther into the emptiness. _I'm dead. Leave me alone!_

He fled from the agony-filled crystals, his eyes widening when they started following him. One crystal sped forwards, faster than the others, and sliced into his mind. Sparkling lightnings of pain sizzled through him, an image twisting before his eyes.

_His mother, some of the last words she had said to him. "You'll be fine. Come on, let's get out of here." She held out her hand, waiting, tears in her eyes._

He screamed. _Leave me alone!_

But the crystal shards would no longer be denied. They slammed into him, one after another, their tiny moments of life dancing and blurring before his eyes. Danny struggled, pushing them away, but they came back, more and more of them. People he barely remembered the names of, family, friends, acquaintances, and complete strangers swirled around him, their faces and voices slurring together.

Faster and faster they came, individual points of white-hot pain merging into one continuous wave of agony. The faces and the voices became a buzz of constant noise and color. Danny crouched down, curling up, trying to ignore them. After an eternity of pain and noise, the voices suddenly coalesced into one. "_Danny_," the voices cried, echoing in the blackness, fearful, terrified, proud, excited, happy, sad, and hopeful. "_Don't leave! We need you!_"

"How?" he screamed, curling up into a tighter ball, fighting to get away from the pain.

"_Danny, don't leave us!_"

"How?" he begged, tears trickling down his cheeks in the darkness. "Help me! Please!"

"_Don't leave!_" the voices thundered. Danny trembled at their power, closing his eyes against the faces of Amity Park.

He pushed himself dizzily to his feet. "I won't!" he screamed, fighting against the waves of pain. He opened his eyes, facing the voices that were haunting him. "I won't!"

"_Danny_," the voices rumbled, the screams and please for help echoing around him, their power thrumming through him. "_Don't leave us!_"

Danny screamed, his eyes flaring green. "I _won't_!"

As the crystals cut into his soul, Danny felt their power fizzle into him. He spread his arms, letting the power of Amity Park flood through him. "I won't leave you," he vowed softly, "not now." Amity Park was _his_. He would protect it. He would be there for his family. He wouldn't leave his friends. "Not ever," he whispered.

"You hear me?" he shrieked into the blackness, pain and power roiling around in a giant thunderstorm. "I won't give up. I _promise_!"

Around him, the abyss suddenly exploded with light, the pain dashing away from him like ripples in a pond. The crystal shards vanished, their voices screaming. Within a single breath he was alone, bathed in light and warmth.

Danny scrunched his eyes shut, breathing heavily, letting his head fall backwards. The light stayed, pain free but blinding.

After a moment of enjoying the warm light, he started to take in his surroundings. He was lying on something pokey and ticklish. Bits jabbed at him here and there, and something soft was moving over him, brushing his hair around.

_I'm finally dead,_ he thought to himself. Strangely, he was quite calm about this idea. He relaxed, enjoying the absence of pain. He laid in the warmth, soaking in the peacefulness, his body losing more of its tension every second. _I can handle dead. I've been half-dead for more than a year, after all._

Something sticky and warm grabbed his nose. "Ah!" he yelped, his eyes popping open. He saw a glimpse of a brownish face surrounded by black curls before his eyes slammed shut again. _Too bright_. He forced his eyes back open, blinking away tears of pain, and slowly sat up. He stared in wonder at the creature that had woken him up.

* * *

She was staring at him, wide-eyed. Her pink dress was grass-stained, her coffee-colored skin smudged with dirt. Beneath her mass of tight, black curls, her black eyes were huge and sparkling. She waved at him with one sticky hand. "Ghost-boy!" she shrieked happily, cookie crumbles flying out of her mouth.

Danny collapsed onto the ground, smiling broadly. It was just a normal little girl. _I'm not dead! _A bubble of laughter trickled up his throat. _I'm alive!_ Warmth curled in his stomach. He closed his eyes, basking in the glow.

But the warmth was gone much too quickly. A new form of emptiness flooded into him, intense and twisting. He was tired, hungry, and weak. Slowly, he opened his eyes once again, eying the chocolate-smeared girl. Pushing himself into a sitting position, his gaze fixed on the bag of cookies the girl had clutched in one fist.

"Cookie?" the girl cooed, holding out a chocolate chip cookie with one grubby hand.

Danny took the cookie, watching carefully to make sure he didn't scare the little girl, and sent her a smile. "Thanks," he rasped, taking a bite. He barely suppressed a moan of delight. It was, without a doubt, the best cookie he had ever eaten. Popping the rest of the cookie into his mouth, he licked his fingers, already feeling the glow of energy as the cookie was quickly metabolized by his ghost body.

The girl smiled at him, flashing her tiny, white teeth. "Good?" she asked, leaning forwards and looking him straight in the eyes.

"Very good," Danny said softly. "May I have another one?"

She laughed, reaching into the bag again. Yanking out another cookie, she took a bite. "Magic word?" she asked.

"Please?" he grinned at her.

The girl nodded, obviously happy with his manners. She dropped the rest of the bag of cookies into his lap without another word and crunched on the cookie still in her fingers. "Mommy, Mommy!" the girl called, turning around and vanishing behind a bush.

He listened to her wander farther away and snuck his hand into the bag. He grabbed one of the chocolate chip cookies, slowly savoring every bite. Energy glowed deep inside of him.

"Mommy!" he heard the girl shriek. He tipped his head to the side at the sudden change in her voice, tensing, afraid that she was in trouble. But the mother's voice was calm and crisp. "Sweetheart, where did you leave your cookies?" The little girl giggled. "Ghost-boy!"

Danny clutched the bag of cookies to his chest and staggered to his feet. He gasped as he legs gave out on the first attempt, sending him back to his knees. Finally he was standing, his legs trembling, leaning against a tree trunk. _Yup,_ he through sarcastically, _I'm definitely alive. Nobody dead can be this tired._

Gritting his teeth at the effort it was taking, he slowly staggered off into the woods. _Stupid dark room couldn't kill me, evil psychopathic lady didn't, Ghost King couldn't, Plasmius doesn't stand a chance, hell – even I couldn't kill me. This isn't such a big deal_. At that thought, his legs turned to rubber and he nearly dropped the precious bag of cookies as he grabbed at the nearest tree branch. He held perfectly still, getting his feet securely underneath him once more.

"Sweetheart, there's no ghost-boy here." Behind him, the girl argued with her mother. "Yes there was, Mommy! He was right here. I promise!" "Darling, don't lie to me, it's not nice." "Mommy!"

Slowly, almost painfully, Danny stumbled through the woods, ignoring the two voices fading into the distance. He pushed himself from tree trunk to tree trunk, breathing heavily, pausing every few minutes to snag another cookie from the bag. Finally, after what had to have been hours of hard work – but was probably more like twenty minutes – he spotted a small stream. He paused at the top of the small embankment, breathing heavily as he rested against a large maple tree. "Fun," he whispered, examining the obstacle.

Carefully, slowly, he stepped out onto the slight downhill, his legs choosing that moment to turn to pudding. He collapsed into a patch of mud next to the stream in a tangle of tired limbs. Groaning in pain and disgust, he pushed himself to his knees and crawled back up the hill a little ways. He sank to his knees in a dry spot, scooping the worst of the muck off and tossing it back into the stream.

"At least the cookies are safe," he muttered, laughing softly at the panic he had felt seeing the bag covered in mud. "I'm a hero." Wiping his mucky hands on a clean spot of his ripped and torn jumpsuit, he reached into the bag and grabbed another cookie.

Munching contentedly, he looked around, trying to figure out what to do next. "You know," he mumbled, "running away from the park was probably a bad idea." He examined his muddy fingers carefully, noting that the cookie was gone far too fast. After a second of contemplating, he licked his dirty fingers anyway.

"Let's see. Priority number one." His eyes drifted to the mud-speckled bag sitting on the grass. "Find more food." He picked up the bag, glancing inside. _Two left_. "Next, I need sleep to get some energy back." Biting back a yawn, he grabbed another cookie. "And I need to find out what happened to my mom."

"So…" he trailed off, his eyes fixing on the stream. "You think this is Calvin's Creek?" The trees around him were silent, refusing to answer. "If it is," he mused, "than this goes through that old development next to Valerie's apartment." He raised an eyebrow, stealing the last cookie out of the bag. "So, theory goes that if I follow it downstream, I should hit Valerie's place. Simple."

He crumpled the empty cookie bag and sighed. "It's going to be a long walk." Pushing himself back to his feet, he closed his eyes and focused for a moment. His bare feet levitated slightly, but he dropped back to the ground after only a heartbeat. "Yup, walking is easier," he panted.

He took a few steps, but he dropped back to his knees when he tripped over a stone. "Yeah," he muttered darkly, pushing himself back up. Eyes screwed tightly shut as a wave of dizziness washed over him, he scowled. "This will just be a walk in the park, won't it?"

He staggered off into the woods.

* * *

Blinking at the bright red setting sun, Danny leaned against the tree trunk and surveyed the mess before him. _I was right. That was Calvin's Creek_. Before him, an ancient apartment complex stood wearily against the encroaching darkness. Long abandoned, the yard had been left to its own devices. The lawn was now an overgrown mess of weeds, the trees dying and falling over. _It looks like a perfect hotel for a ghost to spend the night_, he thought sarcastically, _what luck._

He stumbled a few steps into the lawn before he tripped over his own exhausted feet and collapsed into the weeds. Moaning, he closed his eyes and curled up in a ball, rethinking his desire to sleep in that building. _The grass is nice_. He lay perfectly still, listening to the quiet emptiness around him, his own raspy breathing marring an otherwise still night.

"I wish I had a real stomach as a ghost," he whispered, "that way it could object to the lack of food and I'd have something to listen to."

Caught up in his own grumblings and complainings, he didn't notice the crunching footsteps until they were right next to him. "Hey, kid!"

Danny shot upwards, his breath catching in his throat. Almost without thought he was in a crouch, glancing around, ready to run or fight. His eyes caught on a pair of worn boots and travelling upwards, finding ripped blue jeans, a thick jacket, and a dirty face. The middle-aged man smiled, his creased face open and friendly. "The grass can't be that comfortable."

"You'd be surprised," Danny whispered, sinking back to the ground.

The man shook his head. "Come on, I got grub," he said, walking away.

Danny watched him go, furrowing his eyebrows. The man dropped into an ancient-looking folding chair in the shadow of the abandoned apartment building. He had a small fire burning in a pit. Leaning forward, the man stirred something sitting next to the campfire. He glanced back. "You hungry?" he called.

"Sure, why not?" Danny wondered to himself, staggering to his feet. Carefully he drifted towards the man, watching where his feet were going in the vanishing light. More than once he dropped to his knees as an errant toe caught in the weeds, upsetting his shaky balance.

He made it to the edge of the firelight before hesitating. The man was busy over the campfire, messing with a coffee can propped up on a rock. Leaning back in his chair, the man grabbed a sweater and pulled it on over his jacket, shivering slightly. Danny glanced up at the moon, knowing there must be an early fall chill in the air, but he was not able to feel it. He sighed softly, turning back to the rough-cut man.

"I don't bite, kid," the man chuckled. "I got my rabies shots just the other day."

"I know you don't bite," Danny mumbled, still refusing to step into the light.

For a second, they stared at each other. "What," the man said, wrinkling his brow, "you some kind of monster that doesn't like the fire?"

Danny glanced down at his fingers. Underneath the mud and scratches, his skin was translucent and vaguely glowing. Frankly, he was surprised his glowing eyes hadn't scared the man away yet. _Maybe I don't have enough energy for my eyes to be glowing too much_.

"Sit!" the man commanded, his voice deepening into a thick middle English accent. "Be ye man or beast or creature of the night, sit and partake of mine meal!" He laughed, grabbing two cups out of a box by his side.

Danny edged into the light, his eyes fixed on the man. He hesitated, one hand on the offered chair, tense and ready to run, when the man stopped and stared at him. "What happened to you?" the man whistled in awe. "Get sucked through a garbage disposal?"

"Huh?" Danny blinked, startled. He glanced down at himself, looking past his fingers, a half-grin on his face as he realized what the man meant. He was covered in greenish blood, mud, and bits of plants. His jumpsuit was ripped and torn, almost hanging on him in rags, his shoes were missing, and his exposed skin – where not covered in mud – was scratched and bruised. "Oh… well…" he broke off, trying to come up with an explanation.

"Skip it," the man snorted, "although it's probably a great story. Sit, kid."

Danny crumpled into the lawn chair, his tired brain grateful to be off the hook for coming up with a story. He sighed, letting his eyes drift closed slightly.

"Here," the man offered him a cup full of soup. "You look like you haven't eaten in a week."

A grin flickered across his face as he reached for the cup. "Two weeks, almost," he whispered, his eyes sparkling at the wonderful smell curling up from the warm liquid. "Thanks." He took a huge sip, ignoring the burning sensation as it seared down his throat.

He glanced up at the man. The drifter's grey eyes were watching him carefully. "You hear about that kid and his mother than vanished two weeks ago?"

"Yeah," Danny replied slowly, taking another sip. _Does he know about my mom?_ _Is she okay?_

"Of course you did," the man said softly, tipping his head and taking a drink of his own soup. "It was headlines for more than a week. What was his name…" The man tapped his nose, thinking. Silence descended, broken only by the swallowing of soup and the crackling of the fire. "Ah yes, Danny Fenton." Grey eyes narrowed, watching Danny carefully. "You aren't Danny Fenton… are you?"

Danny hesitated. "No," he finally said, shaking his head sourly. "I'm not." He stared at the broth in the cup, rolling it slowly between his hands. "You haven't heard anything new, have you? The kid or his mother?" He didn't dare glance up, afraid that his eyes would give too much away.

"Hmm." The man's chair creaked as he shifted, sipping his soup. "Can't say, really. I don't remember much about the mother; the news has all been about the kid. He was supposed to be declared dead, you know, now that the search has been called off." There was silence for a moment as they listened to the crackling of the fire. "Poor kid, probably starved according to the papers. I bet their family was devastated."

Danny finished his soup in silence, letting the man's words drift through him. _If only I'm being declared dead, that means they found Mom, right? She had to have told them…_

"You need a place to stay tonight?" the man interrupted his thoughts. "It's going to be cold."

"I'm fine," Danny murmured.

"You sure?" Danny finally glanced up at him, grinning at the odd look the man was giving him. "You look half-dead, kid. You sure you're going to be okay?"

"I just need to rest," he said softly. "Thanks for the soup." Danny set the cup down next to the fire, watching the glowing, dancing embers for a moment. "What's your name?" he asked suddenly.

The man grinned, showing every one of his blackened teeth. "Name's Jim, nice to meet you." He stuck out his hand to shake, blinking at the cold feeling of Danny's hand. "Who're you?"

Danny laughed sourly. "Just a ghost nobody cares about."

Jim raised one eyebrow in disbelief. "A ghost?" His mouth fell open. "You're that ghost. Phantom, right?"

"I have to go." Danny pushed himself out of his chair, the soup already causing a warm glow of energy. He took a few steps, his legs steadier than they had been in days.

"Kid," Jim said softly, putting a warm hand on Danny's shoulder. Danny turned to look at him for a second. "People care about you. They figured you died a few days ago. They're planning some kind of memorial for you."

"I'm just a ghost," Danny murmured.

"Well, just-a-ghost," Jim laughed, "you're also a hero." He grinned at Danny, his grey eyes sparkling with delight. "You're _our_ hero. Amity Park has never had a hero before, you know. We're kind of protective." Jim sobered slightly, leaning forwards to gaze right into Danny's eyes. "We're here for you kid, you just have to ask."

Danny stared at him for second in disbelief, then shook his head. "Thanks for the soup, Jim."

"My pleasure, hero," Jim laughed, dropping back into his lawn chair. "Stop by anytime, I'll be here."

Danny rolled his eyes, walking steadily into the night. Behind him, he could hear Jim muttering about the foolishness of teenagers – even ghost teenagers. Containing a grin at the heady influx of energy, Danny slid around the corner of the apartment building, allowing Jim's campfire to vanish into the shadows.

* * *

After only a few steps, Danny hesitated, peering into the night. _Which way?_ he wondered silently, a half-thought to go back and ask Jim. He turned around, glancing back at the slight flickering of light. "No," he whispered softly. "I can do this."

But a few minutes later, he was still standing. Finally, he just sighed. "I'll find my way in the morning," he muttered, glancing up at the ancient building looming above him. _A few hours of sleep will be awesome_. "This is as good a place to sleep as any, I suppose."

A few steps down, the door of the abandoned apartment stood partly open, the black hallway a monster's maw in the deep shadows of the night. He stepped closer, blinking at the 'Condemned' sign posted on the door. Danny stumbled to a stop, staring into the darkness beyond the door. _This is not a good idea…_

Despite his thoughts, he stepped through the door and into the rickety building. The floor creaked under his light weight, the dead leaves scattered across the floor crackling under his feet. After a few hesitant steps, he slowed and came to a stop, the silent building breathing around him. A grin flickered across his lips. "A perfect haunt for a ghost," he laughed, the thick cobwebs dangling into his face.

Ducking a particularly thick strand of cobwebs, he slid farther into the building, his eye catching a dark stairwell. "Up?" he wondered, shrugging. He creaked the stairwell door open the rest of the way, ghosting up the rickety stairs. Coming to the third floor, he stepped out into the hallway, wandering down its crumbling length. Spiders and small insects scurried away from his footsteps, a mass of gnat-like bugs swirling around his head whenever he stepped into one of the decaying piles of leaves.

He skirted a hole in the floor, brushed past crumbling wallpaper, and leapt lightly over a mass of _something_ on the floor. Peaking through each door, he moved farther and farther down the hall, a small hope of finding an old chair or some kind of mattress to sleep on. Finally, he gave up on that. _It'd probably be disgusting anyway_.

The last apartment had a small, brass seven nailed crookedly on the door. He pushed the door open, peering into the encroaching darkness. The three-room apartment was empty and quiet, the lone window along the opposite wall broken and letting in a breeze that was stirring the junk on the floor. He walked over to the shattered glass, looking out over the town. The park he had struggled through was barely visible in the cloudy night.

"Great," he muttered. Settling down into a corner, unconsciously dropping into the same position he'd been trapped in for weeks, he took a deep breath. "Well…" he trailed off, glancing around the room. Deep in his stomach, the soup was still blazing through his ghost form, its temporary energy fizzling and burning.

"Tomorrow, I'm going home," he whispered to the room. A small smile grew on his face. "Home." That one word brought little bubbles of happiness into his mind.

Grinning slightly, his eyes drifted closed. He yawned, sinking happily into sleep. Before he could let that comfortable heaviness surround him, there was a scuffling in the corner. "Jim?" he whispered. Sleepily, his eyes flitted open at the lack of an answer.

He gasped, pulling his stretched-out legs in against his chest. All around him, eyes glittered from the shadowed recesses of the room. A few of the beady eyes moved forwards, short, furry bodies highlighted by the dim light from the window. Long tails rasped against the floor.

Rats.

* * *

Yanking his knees as close to him as he could, he stared out at the gathering rats. "Scat!" he yelled. "What do you want?" The rats just stared at him, their eyes gleaming.

One of the rats, its matted fur shimmering in the moonlight, crept forwards. Its small claws clicked softly on the wooden floor. It advanced slowly until it was just a few feet from his toes and gazed at him for a moment. Behind the one brave rat, a few other rats chittered anxiously, hopping up and down, moving from side to side. One by one, a handful of lean rats slid forwards, stopping periodically to stare at him.

"Go away!" he snapped sharply, making the rats jump and scatter back into the darkness. "You don't scare me. Rats don't really attack humans."

Deep in the darkness, the black eyes reappeared, more and more eyes emerging out of the blackest holes in the walls. Silent except for the occasional scuffling of small bodies, the rats watched Danny. With a growing feeling of fear, Danny watched the rats.

"I'm not food," he snarled at the growing horde of rats. "So scram."

The rats edged closer. The full moon broke through the clouds and cast an eerie glow in the room. Mangy fur covered the rats' too-lean bodies and hungry eyes glittered above sharp, yellow teeth. The rats snapped at each other, instantly turning on their compatriots if a tail or ear got in their way.

A lone rat dashed in, trying to take a bite of Danny's bare foot. He rapped the rat with his hand, sending it flying back into the mass of rats. "Hey!" he screamed at the rats, making them jump backwards en masse, ears flattening. "Go away!"

Danny glanced at the door, his stomach sinking. _I can't fly or phase out of here, I don't have enough energy._ His eyes flickered back over the advancing mass of gray and brown fur. "Typical," he sighed. "I survive all of this and now I have to deal with _you_. Do you see the irony in this?"

He studied the rats. "I can't taste very good," he informed the rats blandly. "Trust me, I've eaten enough ectoplasm at supper."

The rats silently stared back, apparently unconcerned.

"Why are you attacking me? You don't have rabies, do-"

A rat rushed in, only to be bashed into the wall by a well-timed kick. On its heels, another rat snuck in from the opposite side and managed to sink its teeth into Danny's leg. "Ouch!" he yelped, knocking the rat away with his fist. "Stupid rat!"

The pack moved forwards as one, sharp incisors glittering in the light from the moon. "Stay away from me," Danny warned, trying to make his trembling voice dark and scary. He pointed at the rats, his eyes flaring with fear-filled energy. "Stay… stay…"

Not heeding his command in the slightest, a handful of rats jumped at him. They latched onto his flailing body, slicing into his arms, shoulders, and legs. "No!" Danny hollered in pain, instinctively searching for a way out it. He found an escape deep inside of himself, a swirl of white-hot energy that pooled and sizzled. Power burned through his body, the rats shrieking as the energy sparked into them.

Panting, he sank back against the wall, his tired eyes flickering around the room, panic bubbling through him. In a flash of fear, he held up his fingers, gazing at them. While still vaguely transparent, it wasn't nearly as bad as it had been. Danny's shaking hands dropped back to his side. "Stop that," he chided himself. "You're not going to vanish because you used up a little energy."

He glanced towards the shadowed doorway. Several rats – probably the ones he'd zapped – were lying on the floor. The rest were nowhere to be seen. _Come on, let's get out of here._

His legs refused to work. The comforting warm buzz of energy from the cookies and soup was completely gone and he was left empty and tired. No matter how much He pushed against the wall, he kept finding himself back on the floor. "Damnit," he whispered, dropping his head onto his knees. "Maybe they won't come back."

He sat there for a long time, his eyelids becoming heavier with the passage of time. He tracked the moonlight drifting slowly across the dirty floor. His eyes closed for a moment when the square of silver light was a few inches from his foot.

A sharp bite to his toes snapped him back awake, kicking out at the offending rat. It jumped lithely out of the way, snaking in to take a snap at his hand. "Stupid rat!" he shouted in pain, throwing the rat across the room with a flick of his hand. There was a scrambling sound as it hit the floor. "Go away!"

Staring around the room, he swallowed when he saw the glittering, black eyes. It was definitely a smaller mob than the first one, but there were still too many. "Don't you dare," he muttered darkly. "I'm a scary and powerful ghost, and you are just a bunch of stupid rats."

Ignoring his commentary, the rodents snuck closer and closer, quiet chittering filling the air.

Fear twisting into his brain, he stared at the beady eyes and shimmering fur. "Go away!" he yelled, _reaching_ for that forbidden pool of energy deep in his soul. His whole body flared with power, green-white lightning zapping through the room and scorching the nearest rats. The room was suddenly empty again. A few more comatose rat bodies scattered on the floor. Danny pressed his back against the wall, gasping with the use of power.

Within seconds, the eyes were back.

"No," he whispered, looking over the reassembling rats. He glanced down at his hands, panicking slightly when he could see the rats through his hands, but his gaze was inexorably drawn back to the growing number of rats. Danny pushed himself to his feet, leaning heavily against the wall. He barely got to his feet before he collapsed back to the ground. He snarled at himself, frustrated and scared of how weak he was.

Closing his eyes, he curled his arms up over his head. "Stay away," he prayed softly, panic and fear scrambling his thoughts like a blender. If there was a better idea, he couldn't come up with it. Over and over, every time the scrabbling claws of a rat tapped against his cold skin, his body yanked energy out of his core. Over and over, he screamed in pain as green-white lightning zapped through the room, scorching rats, leaving him slightly more transparent.

Sometime during the night, he stopped counting how many times they snuck closer, how many times he chased them away. He sank deeper into the misery of night, letting his body run on autopilot, his mind swirling into a deadly depression.

When the sun finally rose, the rats vanished. In the bright light of the dawn sun, Danny was barely visible. Finally left alone, he closed his eyes and fell asleep, too exhausted and empty to cry. Too tired to move.

The sun was high in the sky when the scrabbling returned, dragging him out of his sleep. Danny didn't bother to open his eyes, or even move. _I don't care_. He took a ragged breath and let it out slowly.

_Let them come._

* * *

He waited, silent and calm, for the rats to attack. _I'm too tired to do anything_. For a moment he closed his eyes, gauging the embers of energy sparkling in him. _Just a few more attacks and I'm done_.

Slowly he relaxed, forcing his trembling fingers to loosen. Consciously controlling his breathing, he refused to panic. _Stupid rodents_. His mind sinking into a cool, depressed state, his spirit seemingly floating over his body, his thoughts turned slightly sarcastic. _I wonder how long it will take them to kill me._

He was still debating whether or not to fight the rats one last time when the floor creaked behind him. He tensed; his carefully peaceful façade vanished. His breath catching in his throat, fingers balling back up into fists, he listened to the brushing of the creatures coming forwards. _Stop it,_ he ordered himself, _they're just rats. You are NOT afraid of rats._

Still, he cringed away from the sound of the creatures pausing at his back. He screwed his eyes shut, his toes curling, his stomach twisting painfully. _Go away…_

If he had the energy to do anything, he would have screamed in wild panic when something warm brushed across his cheek. _No, no, no, no, no, GO AWAY!_

"Phantom?"

_Wait. Rats don't talk…_ Scrounging up enough energy, he forced his eyes open. Although one eye refused to open at all due to a painful slice on his eyelid, he could make out a blurry head attached to hazy shoulders. Whoever-it-was peered down at him anxiously, reaching up to push his dirty hair out of his face.

"What?" he rasped, letting his eye drift back closed. "I want to sleep." _You're almost worse than the rats. Go away, I'm too tired._

"No, you can't sleep," the lady murmured. Danny moaned when she grabbed his shoulder, giving him a light shake. "I'm here to help you."

He channeled a bit more energy to his arms, a vague thought to push her away coalescing in his exhausted mind. When his arms did little more than twitch at his command, he gave up. "How?" _I'm exhausted. Why won't you just leave me alone?_ "Just leave me alone." _Please…_

Curling up into a tighter ball, he pushed the thought of the lady out of his head. _I'm just a ghost, she won't care – not really. She'll just go away. I don't want help._

"No."

Danny's flinched at her sharp retort. When she rolled him onto his back, he forced his eyes back open and blinked up at the blurry woman. Just as she was coming into focus, she turned away, rummaging through a small bag.

_Blue shirt, red hair_, he ticked off in his mind, his worn out brain refusing to put the clues together. Suddenly it clicked. _Mom!_ A painful smile slid onto his face, unable to be contained, accompanied a warm glow that settled into his chest. _She's okay._

Turning back, she held out the small bottle of water. "You are my hero. It's my turn to save you," she murmured, tipping his head back and pouring a small mouthful of the warm water into his mouth. He coughed as the water went down wrong, convulsing weakly. A grin appeared on her face, her eyes glittering.

_What did she call me?_ he wondered in awe. "You think I'm a hero?" The words came out feeble and stuttering, the voice of someone inches from death. Inwardly, Danny winced at the sound.

She ignored the raspy whisper, her eyes dancing in the light. "Yes. And I'm proud of you."

Danny let out a soft breath at that thought, the warm glow in his chest sparking happily.

"I'm going to get you out of here," she continued, "you'll be fine." She reached down, brushing his dirty hair out of his eyes again. "Everything will be alright, just like you promised."

He was so caught up in her expression, watching a happy tear trickle down her cheek, that another mouthful of water caught him completely by surprise. Coughing and gasping, his mind was whirling. His mother twisted away from him, rummaging through her pack. Danny pushed himself shakily onto an elbow, the warm glow in his chest and the sweet-tasting water sending a trickle of energy into his trembling body. "You accept me for what I am?"

It felt like a giant fist had closed around his chest as he waited for her answer. _Everything_ was riding on her response. He unconsciously leaned forwards, almost upsetting his fragile balance. Anxiety made his eyes flicker to life, glowing dully for a heartbeat.

"Of course," she answered distractedly, not glancing in his direction. Finally she yanked an old-style cell phone out of her bag and smiling.

"Really?" he mouthed, letting his arm give way and drop back to the floor. Tears burned in his swollen, aching eyes. _Thank you._ Staring up at the broken ceiling, his smile grew. No questions asked, complete stranger, she had accepted him. _She accepted me._

"Then I owe you an apology," he whispered, feeling joyful bubbles bursting inside of him. _I can live long enough in human form to get to the hospital._ He closed his eyes, focusing deep inside of himself. He'd been in ghost mode for so long, it was hard to find that warm, heavy feeling in his mind. But there it was still there. Jessica Oscura hadn't stolen it from him permanently.

"Why?" he heard her say, her voice distracted.

"For lying to you," he breathed, his mind centered on that warm, heavy sensation in his head. Taking a deep breath, he grabbed every ounce of power he had left. Freezing tingling swarmed over his body as rings of light appeared.

His eyes instantly drooped and he collapsed the rest of the way to the floor. His breathing was ragged and harsh in his ears, his heart beating lethargically. Two weeks of torment were suddenly catching up to his human body. Blackness swirled at the edges of his vision.

"Danny!" he heard his mother scream before he drifted away.

* * *

The rats wouldn't leave him alone.

They chased him silently through the passages of the abandoned apartment building, their eyes seeming to glow and shine in the light from his aura. Danny tried to cut left, but the rats streamed forward to block off his escape routes. To stop would mean being smothered in the flea-infested bodies of the rats. Left and right were impossible. Forwards was the only option. He took it.

The hallway stretched on forever. In the darkness, he could not see anything but the gleaming eyes. On and on he ran, too tired to fly but too scared to stop.

Suddenly a lady appeared in the darkness ahead of him, illuminated by flames that seemed to dance around her feet. She looked up at him, the light in her brown eyes quenched, her elegant green dress hanging limply on her frame. "Evening helper. Guess what time it is?" her voice was lifeless and monotone.

She raised her hands, thirteen candles arranged in concentric circles flaring about her. The green candle sitting just before her knees exploded into a spear of light that almost touched the ceiling. From the depths of the emerald flame, he could see two pairs of eyes staring out at him, begging for help. One pair was a glowing green, one pair a sky blue.

Danny flinched away from the lady and her hellish candles, staggering around the circle of light and fleeing farther down the corridor. Behind, the dead voice mocked him, slicing through the panting of the rats and the patter of thousands of feet. "You think you can win, hybrid? I am better than you. You are a disease. A blight on humanity. Run, freak, if you think you can."

A wall of rats rearing up in front of him forced Danny to twist to the right and skid through an open doorway, sliding into the room like a baseball player approaching home plate. Seeing their prey down for the count, the army of rats closed in, their teeth chattering in the deadly silence.

As they neared, Danny could finally see something other than their glittering eyes. By the glow from the windows, he watched in horror as they slunk closer and closer. Bones showed through the rats' rotten skin, maggots crawling all over the mangy fur. One, stumbling just inches from his hand, was missing its entire head – white neck bones waved in the air. Another rat, little more than bone and clumps of matted hair, grabbed a wriggling maggot from a nearby rat and crunched it, green maggot guts spewing into the air, before "swallowing" the destroyed maggot and leaving the insect's remains to dangle through its rib cage.

Danny couldn't take it anymore. He screamed. He was on his feet faster than he knew possible, dashing out of the room.

He froze. _Crap! _Standing before him was a rat of monstrous proportions. Its half-dead body stretched from wall to wall. Danny's eyes widened. Incisors the size of large dogs glittered inches from his nose. With a motion quicker than anybody would have dreamed possible, the rat king swallowed Danny whole.

"Half-dead freak," the lady's dead voice echoed through his head as Danny closed his eyes, willing the nightmare to end. "Disease. You are not better than the rats that haunt you." Suddenly she was there, behind his screwed-shut eyelids, holding her green candle in her hands, her malicious grin not reaching her dead eyes.

He took a deep breath, ignoring the horrible smell of the rat king's rotting insides. Another scream raced out of his throat as he backed away from her, pressing up against the rat's hard ribs. "No!"

His arm began to burn. He scratched at it distantly, his eyes refusing to leave the dark recesses of the green-dressed lady's face. The smoldering pain quickly engulfed his arm and invaded his chest. Within a heartbeat, the sharp prickling had spread through his entire body, snapping at his brain.

The emerald flame grew brighter and brighter, forcing Danny to turn away. The lady's haunted voice echoed in his ears, slowly trailing off. "Run, vermin. I am coming for you…"

Danny struggled against the light, against the horde of rats. His whole body felt like it had been put through a food processor – he had aches in places he couldn't remember having before – and he was exhausted. The burning pain of his arm was fading away, the panic of his nightmare fading to a dim memory.

_Why is the light so bright? _A groan escaped from his lips. _Turn it off…_

Very abruptly, he knew the rats had been a dream. He was now awake, lying on a bed; the annoying light wasn't from an evil candle, it was a light bulb glowing in the ceiling. He moaned again, still aching, stretching his arms and legs slightly. Everything hurt, but it was a distant ache. Something was dulling the sharp edge of the pain.

The edge of the bed depressed as something heavy dropped next to him. A warm hand pressed itself against his forehead and another grabbed his hand. Danny let his eyes open slowly, the whole world blurry. Something vaguely flesh-toned was hovering in his view.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the face came into focus. The eyes were staring at him, tears building up inside them. A smile was growing across the face. Danny felt his mouth twitch in response. He blinked – it seemed to take forever – before he tried to speak.

He only got out one word. "Mom?"

His mother burst into tears and wrapped her son up in a hug. "My boy, my baby boy," she whispered shakily. "I love you so much."

* * *

Danny's eyes drifted open and he suppressed a soft moan. Letting his head fall to the side, he glanced at the soft green glow of the clock by his side. _Almost three in the morning_, he thought. He struggled to sit up, his trembling arms barely able to support his weight. Finally his back was cushioned by the hospital's pillow and his shoulders were able to lean heavily against the back of the bed.

He let his eyes close for a moment, panting from the marathon effort of sitting up. A small smile glided onto his lips, proud of this small achievement.

Sapphire eyes opened once more, able to survey the room in peace for the first time since he had woken up. Blipping lights and beeping monitors flickered and flashed in the dim light coming from the hallway. His gaze trailed up the IV sticking into his thin arm, eyes narrowing suspiciously at the slight green glow the liquid was giving off. _What kind of IV fluid glows in the dark?_

After a moment, he shook his head, biting his lip at the wave of dizziness that flooded through him at the movement. _I don't really care_, he sighed. _Think about it later… but for now…_

Continuing to catalog the room, his head twisted around to the small hospital window. Thin curtains covered the glass, but the bright light of a waning crescent moon shone easily through them.

_It's impossible to believe_. He gazed at the glow of the moon, his thoughts peaceful. _It's been over a week since that night._ A shiver swirled through him. _Four days. I was 'missing' for four days… where was I? That blackness… the place with the memories… that didn't last for four days…_

_And then five days unconscious. Nine days since the full moon…_

He wrenched his gaze away from the window, tossing his millions of questions and worries into the back of his mind. _It feels like it happened yesterday. Give it time._ A quiet chuckle slid out of him. Jazz would most be trying to get him to 'talk about his feelings' bright and early tomorrow. _It's not worth worrying about until then._

Pushing the last of his thoughts into the shadows of his brain, he let his eyes wander around the room again. Near the foot of his bed, a slim figure in a bluish jumpsuit slept in a small chair, her arms crossed and placed on his bed, her head cushioned by her arms. _Mom,_ he thought happily.

They hadn't had a chance to talk yet. He had fallen back asleep in her arms only minutes after waking up. He could remember her comforting arms around him, whispering in his ear. She hadn't asked any questions, but there had to be so many in her head. Danny knew there were so many in _his_ head.

A sharp snort drifted through the room, followed quickly by a soft muttering about ghosts. Turning his head, a grin already on his face, Danny took in the bulky form of his father. His father was curled up on the floor, a tiny plushy toy wrapped in his muscular arms. Another memory floated into his brain. His dad had been there when he woke up too. Mom had been hugging him, but Dad had just been standing there like a fish out of water, his mouth opening and closing silently.

His father's silence was okay. The look in the large man's eyes and the tears streaming down his cheeks had spoken for him. He hadn't needed words.

The biggest surprise of the room was its final occupant – a teenage girl curled up on the other hospital bed. _I always thought Jazz would be too smart to sleep at a hospital_. He stared at her, smiling happily. When their father had cracked his skull during an experiment, she had been steadfast in her desire to not stay overnight with him. _There's no point,_ she argued, _we'll come back in the morning. He'll be asleep and we can be comfortable!_

Yet here she was, staying overnight with him. "Love you too, Jazz," he whispered. He focused on each of his family members one last time, a steady glow filling his head.

Suddenly he yawned, tiredly sinking back down into his bed. As soon as his head touched the pillow, his eyes closed, his mind slowing its perpetual whirling. Sure, there were things that needed explaining, problems that needed working out, questions that needed answering. But he knew, for the first time, he _knew_ that his parents would accept him.

It wasn't the sour feeling that had accompanied the feeling when Dan had told them who he was. It wasn't the trembling, half-scared, uncontrollable feeling of the incident with Freakshow and the reality gauntlet. This was a tranquil numbness that stretched from the bottom of his stomach to the farthest corners of his mind.

They accepted him for what he was – not because he was their son, but because of _who_ he was deep down inside. There was no chance they would fear him, or turn on him, or experiment on him.

As he drifted back off to sleep, he reveled in the peaceful state of his mind.

Rats didn't chase him through endless hallways.

Dead voices and circles of candles didn't haunt his footsteps.

For tonight, he was happy.

* * *

In a cell not too far from the hospital, a woman sat, staring into a prison mirror. Her normally beautiful curls were limp and disheveled. She snarled softly, her roommate flinching away from the malice in the woman's voice. "Stupid ghost. He ruined _everything!_"

Curling her manicured fingernails into her soft palms, Jessica Oscura threw herself to her feet, pacing back and forth in the room. "I have _not_ failed. My idiot brother was _not_ correct. I will _not_ be upstaged by a ghost!"

Her quick, powerful mind filtered back through the events of the past two weeks. It settled on two images, her feet pausing mid-step. Hesitantly, her foot dropped to the ground, her mouth twitching into a frown. "Is it possible?" she wondered.

In her mind, a picture of the lit green candle flickered. She had finished the ceremony, that much she knew. According to legend, the candle would not go out until the ritual was complete or the candle burned itself out. Not rain, nor wind, nor lack of air would put the emerald flame out.

But yet, when she had been shaken awake by the police officers after that _child_ attacked, she could clearly remember the flame having been snuffed out.

Deep in thought, she wandered back to her cot, settling down on the starched sheets. "How can it be?" she whispered. "It would take two lives, two souls…" She laid back, closing her eyes.

For the longest time, the only sounds were Jessica's soft breathing and the shuffle of her roommate's deck of playing cards.

Suddenly, her eyes flashed open. "Of course," she breathed. "I had it wrong. _Two_ deaths…"

"Guard!" she screeched, racing across the cell to poke her hand out between the bars of her cell. "Guard!"

"What?" he snapped, letting his newspaper drop to his knees as he glared at her.

"May I have your paper when you are finished with it? Please?" she smiled, batting her eyes. "I would like to keep up on current events."

After a moment, the guard simply nodded.

Grinning happily, Jessica Oscura turned around to wait. Her family was nothing if not patient, and she was no exception. Especially now that she knew that her plans weren't as derailed as she had feared.


	3. Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can Jack, Jazz, Sam, and Tucker find a way to save Danny before it's too late?

* * *

_ _Jack and Jazz_ _

* * *

_I'm not even hungry for fudge._ Jack stared moodily at the plate in front of him, his chin propped up by one of his arms. With his free hand, he pushed the plate away and let his chin drop to the table. Lost in his mind, the large man let his eyes close.

In his mind he pictured Danny walking through the door, laughing at something his spooky girlfriend had said, the horrors of the past few weeks nothing but a nightmare. Dream Danny dropped his backpack on the table and rustled through the refrigerator for something edible before turning and heading out of the room to watch a movie with his friends.

Jack let himself get caught up in the daydream, a tiny smile on his face. The pure _normalness_ of the situation made it that much more realistic. Forgetting himself for just a moment, his eyes opened. The table was empty of the overlooked backpack, the remembered sounds of the trio's favorite movie drifting into nonexistence.

It hurt all over again, his heart breaking a bit more. His fingers curled into fists, his stomach knotting itself tightly. _Where are you? Why don't you come home? Damn it!_

He slammed his fist into the table, making the plate of fudge bounce and rattle. With a sour sigh he rubbed his hand and glared at the plate, reveling as the festering anger burned the fog in his mind away. _That lady… _He lashed out again, tossing the plate of fudge against the wall, the loops and twists in his stomach untying themselves slightly. The sound of the broken plate clattering to the floor filled the old kitchen. _Why did you take my son from me?_

Groaning, he sank back into his chair, his head resting on his arms. He felt himself fall back into the dazed funk he had lived the past few days in, the world receding back beyond the fringes of his mind.

He let his thoughts drift. _I can't just keep sitting here. I need something to do. _An image of his latest invention slid into his brain, but felt no joy at the thought of finishing it. The mass of parts still lay on a table in the lab in the exact same place it had been dropped two weeks earlier when Danny had vanished. It was unheard of for an unfinished invention to collect dust in this house, but he just couldn't find the energy to get out of his chair.

_First Danny, then fudge, and now ghosts. I have nothing left to lose._

He sighed dramatically, unwilling to let himself continue to sit here and brood over his son's disappearance, but unable to decide what to do once he was standing. Caught in his internal struggle, he almost missed the phone ringing.

"Phone," he mumbled, raising his head slightly off of his arms to gaze into the living room. _Somebody answer it. _"Phone," he said a bit louder on the next ring. "PHONE!" he shouted when it managed to ring again. _I'm busy, somebody…_

_Jazz is at school_. He listened to it ring for the fifth time, the thoughts in his brain making it hard to think. _Maddie is off on some errand I think_. The doctors had said she'd need some time to herself after what she'd been through. _Danny is… Danny is de…_

His mind came to a standstill, refusing to finish the thought that had been creeping into his head. The 'd' word was not allowed to be spoken in this house – not yet. With a moan, he yanked his thoughts back into working order. _Danny is MISSING. Not de… he can't be. He can't be dea…_

Finally he shook his head sharply, reaching over to grab the phone on the ninth ring. "Hello?" he muttered.

"JACK!" The voice on the phone crackled and hissed on the poor connection, but the person was unmistakable.

"Maddie?" _Something is wrong…_

"Jack. Get Jazz. Hurry! Get to the hospital!" Maddie sounded out of breath, ambulance sirens wailing in the background.

Jack could hear men talking, but he couldn't make out the words. Straining to hear, his fingers clenched harder around the handset, making it squeak in complaint. "What? Maddie? Are you hurt?"

Maddie had been so wrapped up inside herself since her rescue. She hadn't cried once in the past four days. Jack felt his heart stop beating for a moment as the thought coalesced in his dazed mind. _She's had a breakdown…?_

"No."

Jack heaved a huge sigh of relief, missing what she'd said. "What?" he asked_._

"Danny's alive…"

He didn't hear any more of her words. Dropping the phone, forgotten, onto the floor, he raced out of the kitchen and slammed into the car. He had the car backed out of the driveway before the phone began to beep, wanting to be hung up. Almost sullenly, the phone wailed softly in the empty house, annoyed at being ignored.

* * *

Jazz sat in her third period class, drumming her fingernails slowly against the thick history book that hadn't yet been opened. Her blue eyes were fixed out the windows, distantly counting the clouds that rolled by. Somewhere in the back of her mind it was registering that the teacher was talking, explaining their homework, but Jazz just blinked and sighed. _Somehow… somehow school just doesn't seem that important today._

Her gaze dropped down and study her drumming fingers. _Danny would have loved to fly today, the weather's just perfect for it._ A sad smile drifted onto her face, her fingers becoming blurry. _Not too much wind, not too cloudy, but not too sunny. I still can't believe he learned all those aeronautical terms._ She chuckled softly, closing her eyes and picturing her little brother. He rolled his eyes at her, muttering something sarcastic under his breath.

Her mind churned slowly from happy memories to the thought of what was awaiting her at home. _Mom was so against me coming to school today. She's so worried about me – but she needs to be worried about herself. She can't accept the fact that Danny's dead… and she doesn't even know the whole truth._

Dropping her head onto her crossed arms, keeping her eyes closed, her brain continued to work, despite her wishes otherwise. _And Dad has just dropped into nothingness. He's given up on everything. We can't even use the word 'dead' around him without him freaking out._

She brushed an errant tear out of her eye, her brain stubbornly refusing to slow its thoughts. This was one of those times that she wondered what it would be like to just turn her brain off. Danny had claimed to be able to do that: pop in a movie or turn on a game and not a thought would cross his mind for hours. _Oh Danny, why did you have to die? It's not fair…_

_But that's you, isn't it? Always playing the hero? You gave your life to save someone you loved._ Jazz's eyes flickered open. Her gaze was drawn back out the window. _Should I tell them, little brother? Should they know how much of a hero their son was?_

"Jazz," the boy next to her hissed, poking her shoulder with his pencil.

She glanced at him, blinking in confusion. Now that she was yanked out of her musings, she could hear the reason for his interruption. It sounded like a stampeding herd of elephants was tearing through the school. _A ghost? Now?_ "Jazz!" a distant voice bellowed.

_I know that voice…_ Jazz sat perfectly still, the thousands of reasons her father would be racing through the school slamming into her mind, sorting themselves into logical and ordered piles. The most likely one filtered to the front of her mind. "Mom," she whispered. Her father called her name again, the emotion in his voice clear even from this distance.

She was out of her seat, heart thumping wildly and her throat choking up. Without a second glance at the teacher, she was wrenching open the door and stumbling into the hallway. Her father – orange jumpsuit easy to spot even in the horribly painted school – was standing at the other end of the hallway, looking lost. "Dad!" she called.

Her feet refused to move as he barreled towards her. "Jazz!" he yelled, his eyes wide and his face wet with sweat as he skidded to a stop right in front of her. "We need to get to the hospital," he panted.

A collective gasp behind her made Jazz glance over her shoulder: the entire class was peeking out the door. But she didn't give them a second thought as her knees started to tremble and her stomach twisted itself violently. She stared down at her feet, refusing to let the entire school see the panic growing in her eyes. _Mom…_ she cried in her mind. _It's finally happened. She's had a breakdown._ Tears welled up, threatening to send her over the edge and start bawling once more. _How bad is it?_ _It's got to be bad for Dad to be running through the school looking for me._

_She didn't… she didn't kill herself… did she?_

Pure terror forced her to look up. She looked straight into his sparkling eyes, the small smile tugging at his lips sending her mind into a spiral of confusion. "What's going on? she asked, her heart settling back down into a somewhat normal pattern.

"Danny," he said softly. She watched in growing bewilderment as his smile grew into a full-on grin. "We need to get to the hospital."

"Danny?" she whispered. _Danny's dead… why would we… _"They found him?" she asked, her heart sinking. "They found his body?" _But why is he smiling?_

Somebody gasped behind her again, and the outpouring of sympathy from her classmates was almost tangible. Jazz's brow furrowed as her father shook his head happily. "He's alive," the man grinned.

"What?" The word was an intake of breath, her expression full of shock and surprise.

He was nodding his head, ignoring her uncomprehending look. "We need to go!" Suddenly twisting around on his heel, he began to stride out of the school, leaving Jazz standing, confused, in the hallway.

"He's…" Her mind refused to work; for the first time, the blankness she had so sought after earlier was surrounding her brain. "H-he's…"

A hand dropped onto her shoulder. The boy from earlier – the one that had poked her with his pencil – was shaking her gently. "Your brother's alive, Jazz. Get outta here." He flashed her a smile. "I'll take care of your stuff. Go."

He gave her a small push, getting her started. Jazz stumbled forwards a few steps. _Danny's… alive?_ The thought just wasn't meshing in her head. _He was dead… and now… he's…_

"He's alive," she whispered to herself, a tear trickling out of her eyes, her stomach tightening. Joy was beginning to bubble up from her toes, tickling her as it moved through her, making her whole body begin to shake. "He's alive!"

Suddenly she found herself twirling in the hallway, her arms outstretched. "HE'S ALIVE!" she screamed happily, not caring for the world who was watching her. _My little brother. He's alive._ She took a few steps towards the door, but stopped as a thought crossed her mind.

"Wait…" Jazz hesitated, glancing up at her father. The man had stopped at the end of the hallway, looking back towards her. "I'll meet you at the car!" she shouted, spinning around and dashing haphazardly deeper into the school, ignoring his puzzled look.

Room 14.

Room 15.

_Darn it, why is the room so far away?_

Room 16.

_There!_ Room 17.

She didn't even bother to knock – she just slammed the door open and rushed in. Mr. Lancer was in the middle of a book on ancient poetry, the book held in one hand, gesturing with the other. He glanced up, annoyed at the interruption. Jazz didn't pay him a second thought – her eyes were searching the room.

Sitting in the back corner were the two students she was looking for. Tucker and Sam both looked up when she barged in. Sam sat up straighter, staring.

Jazz knew she had a silly smile on her face. "They found him," was all she said.

Tucker fell out of his chair in his rush to get up. "He's… he's…"

"We need to get to the hospital." Jazz said. "He's alive."

Sam, who had finally gotten to her feet, sank to the ground and burst into tears.

* * *

_Tucker and Sam_

* * *

Tucker grabbed onto the seat of the car, knuckles white, muttering under his breath. The car slid around the corner, slamming him against the door of the car. "Ouch," he hissed sourly, unwilling to remove one of his hands from the death grip on the seat to rub the sore spot.

"I want to get to the hospital as fast as he does," Tucker ranted softly to himself, "but slow down a bit, could you? We need to get there in _one_ piece. It's bad enough that we're going to a hospital, but could we make sure I'm a visitor not a patient? This is _insane_. Danny'd agree with me, right Sam?"

He glanced over at the Goth sitting next to him, watching a tear escape from her violet eyes and trickle down her cheek. Her black mascara had formed dark trails on her face; her hair had come out of the clip that normally held it back. A piece dangled in her eyes, but she didn't move to brush it or the tear away. She just stared down at her clenched fingers.

Tucker didn't have to look to see what was in her fingers. It was the same picture she had been carrying around for the past two weeks. He had snapped the shot a few months ago as the three of them had been lying on the roof of FentonWorks, completely ignoring life. Sam and Danny had cuddled up next to each other, eyes closed, small smiles on their faces, unaware of the 'blushy moment' that was about to happen. He'd given her the picture the day after Danny had disappeared and she hadn't let go of it since.

Wincing as the car took another sharp turn, he tried to force his mind away from the girl sitting next to him. She was like his sister – it hurt that she was in so much pain.

"Dad," Jazz snapped, breaking him out of his reverie, "you're going to kill us!" She gave a little yelp at the next sudden twist of the car, latching her fingers onto the console in the center of the car to keep herself from being tossed into the door. "Drive slower or drive straighter!"

Tucker bit back a disappointed groan as the speedometer climbed a few points higher instead and Mr. Fenton swerved dangerously around a few more cars. He glanced over at Jazz, half hoping she would say something more, but she was silent, staring forwards, biting her lip.

_That's dangerous,_ he thought, _she's going to bite her lip off if he hits something_.

Rattling his head against the window at the next screeched turn, his thoughts trailed to his missing friend. _Danny, you'd better be alive when we get there._ _You're my only brother, so I reserve the right to kill you if you don't live through this. You promised me that years ago, remember? I'm the only one allowed to kill you._ He glanced once at Sam, still lost in her own little world. _For Sam's sake, you'd better make it through this._

He sighed, wincing as they raced through a barely-yellow light. _Poor Sam, she can't do anything right now. She's so lost. It was so hard to get her moving and out of that classroom. She doesn't know what to think…_

_Hell, I don't know what to think. We all thought you were dead, Danny. Then you come back? I knew you would. That's you – you can do anything, right? But why couldn't you have come back sooner?_

Tucker sank back into his seat, watching the town race by. _Here I am, facing imminent death, holding a one-sided conversation with you in my head. No wonder we're such good friends. We're both completely nuts._ A small snicker escaped from his lips.

As the hospital came into view, Mr. Fenton pushing the car impossibly faster, Tucker felt a grin growing on his face. _Thank you, bro. Thanks for coming back to us._

The car screeched to a halt by the front doors, Mr. Fenton not caring about the fire lane one little bit. He jammed the car roughly into park and jumped out of the car, racing up the front stairs. The keys were left forgotten in the ignition, the door still ajar. Tucker was about to laugh and jab Jazz with her father's absentmindedness, but froze when he found her seat to be empty as well. The girl was only two steps behind her father, her open car door swinging slightly in her wake.

"Hmm…" Tucker finally managed to unweld his tensed fingers from the car seat. Slowly he unbuckled his seat belt, wincing at the pain in his hands. He reached up to the front seat with a sigh – fingers still trembling slightly from the death-defying car ride – and turned the car off. "Sam?" he sad, turning to his best friend. "We're here."

The girl didn't move, her amethyst eyes open and staring down at the picture in her hands.

"Sam?" When she didn't even blink, Tucker got out of the car, carefully closing both his door and Mr. Fenton's door, and slid over to her side of the car. After shutting Jazz's door, he opened hers and knelt down to unbuckle her seat belt. "Sam, you need to come with me." He grinned at her when she looked up, her eyes blank.

"Come on," he laughed, working to keep his tone happy, "we need to go see Danny!"

"Danny?" she whispered, blinking a bit of life into her eyes.

"Yup." He reached forwards and brushed at her cheeks for a moment, smudging the mascara lines on her face. "Come on, Sam, let's go see Danny." He grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the car. Kicking the door shut, he dragged her towards the hospital doors.

"Danny," Sam whispered. A small smile was beginning to grow on her face, "Danny's alive."

* * *

_He was so still_. Sam stared through the small window that led to the operating room. Danny had been wheeled past just as she had come in; she had only seen him for a moment. Not nearly long enough to see if he was okay. She sighed, shifting her weight, waiting. The doctors wouldn't let anybody go through those doors. Not yet. _So I'll wait._

A man in a green shirt came around the corner of the hallway beyond the doors, holding his clipboard. Sam's breath caught in her throat as she watched him come nearer, only to stop about half way and enter a room. She moaned, clenching her fingers tighter around her picture of Danny. _Someone come tell me if he's okay._

Behind her, Tucker, Mr. and Mrs. Fenton, and Jazz were sitting down. She glanced at them before returning to her vigil of the hallway. Tucker was pale, shaking and gazing around nervously. Mr. Fenton was looking lost and confused. Jazz seemed to be torn between being ecstatic and terrified. They were talking… talking… talking…

She didn't want to talk. She wanted to know how Danny was doing.

"It was an accident," Tucker was saying softly behind her, "with the ghost portal."

"He'll be okay," Jazz interrupted.

"He's always okay," Tucker sounded like he was nodding.

Another man in green walked around the corner, Sam standing up on her tip-toes to watch as he strode closer and closer. _Don't stop, come talk to me, don't stop_, she prayed silently, her heart leaping as he passed the half-way mark. But he stopped just a few doors later and entered a room.

_No…_ she snarled to herself, dropping back to the flats of her feet. _Stupid doctors_.

"He's not good," Mrs. Fenton said softly. "That long without food and he's covered in bites and cuts. We don't have any idea what he's been through the past four days."

"But he'll be okay," Jazz reassured the group.

"He's not good," Mrs. Fenton whispered just loud enough for Sam to catch.

Sam reached up to touch the cold glass that was separating her from Danny. _You'd better live through this ghost-boy. _A young woman entered the hallway, not looking up as she moved down the hallway. Sam watched her get closer and closer, then reach out to push open the door…

"Fenton?" the doctor called softly. Instantly the others were on their feet, crowding around her.

"Yes?" Mrs. Fenton managed.

"He's stable," she said softly, clutching her clipboard to her chest, a vague frown on her face. "But there were some… complications."

"Complications?" Mr. Fenton's voice broke. "What do you mean?"

"Mr. and Mrs. Fenton, your son is very weak. He's been for so long without food, and that brings up all sorts of problems. His immune system is almost nonexistent right now, so we're fighting to keep him from getting infected by something. We're worried about rabies from all those bites, the dehydration and malnutrition, his body temperature…"

"What complications?" Mr. Fenton repeated.

"He's in a coma," the doctor admitted. "And there is a strong possibility that he might never come out of it. The deck isn't stacked in his favor right now. We're doing everything we can… but…"

"But?"

The doctor shifted her weight on her feet uneasily. "So far, he's rejected all of the drugs we've given him. Trying to keep him from getting sick is making him worse… but not giving him anything is a death sentence right now." She hesitated, glancing down at her clipboard. "We're going to keep working on – hopefully something will stick."

"What's his temperature?" Tucker cut in.

The doctor blinked down at him. "Um… 96.3. We're trying to get it up."

"That's a fever for him," Sam said softly, her eyes drifting back to the hallway. "He's normally 95.6 degrees."

"We don't have that," she murmured, flipping through her file. "You sure?"

Tucker nodded. "He got into an accident a year ago and that's what it's been since then."

The doctor glanced up at Mr. and Mrs. Fenton. "Is that right?"

After a moment's hesitation, Mrs. Fenton nodded her head.

"He doesn't throw up Advil," Sam added distantly, "does that help?"

"Yes," the doctor said slowly, jotting down the notes on her board. "Thank you."

"Can we see him?" Mr. Fenton put in.

"In a bit," the doctor smiled. "I'll come get you when you can." Then she turned and walked back through the doors, down the long hallway, her shoes clicking on the hard floors.

The others went back to sitting down, but Sam just continued to stand there, staring down the hallway. _I don't want to talk. I just want to know Danny's okay._

Almost in surprise, she felt another tear trickle down her cheek. She absently reached up to brush it away. _There can't be many tears left._

"Sam?" Tucker appeared over her shoulder. "Come eat something. Danny will be fine."

She shook her head, ignoring him. _I just want to stand here and wait for Danny. Oh please, Danny, don't die…_

* * *

_ _Jazz and Tucker_ _

* * *

_ _Jazz ran her fingers through her brother's messy hair. He looked so small and pale on the hospital bed – so helpless. The monitors beeped around the room, but Jazz was paying them no mind. Danny had been unconscious for three days. She'd gotten used to the beeping._ _

A small smile grew on her lips. "Danny?" she asked softly, "Did you know that Dad gave up fudge when we thought you had died?" She let a chuckle trickle up her throat. "Not just ghost hunting – but _fudge_?"

Danny was silent and unmoving against the white sheets. A tiny corner of her heart cracked at his lack of response to her questions. _Of course he's not answering, dim-wit!_ Jazz chided herself, trying once more to push his unruly hair out of his face.

Jazz let a small sigh escape her. "Dad has never given up on fudge before, but he hasn't eaten a bite since mom found you in that building." She let her fingers move away from his hair and grabbed his hand. "That, and he hasn't touched his ghost stuff in weeks. There are unfinished ghost weapons in the basement with _dust_ collecting on them. Can you believe it?"

This time, she didn't pause to wait for him to answer. "You should have seen him, little bro, when Mom told him you were the ghost-boy. You would have enjoyed the look on his face. I'm sorry you weren't there to see it." She laughed for a moment before continuing. "He actually _fainted_, Danny. I know it's not funny, but I remember how you use to joke about what they'd do when they found out. You never thought that he'd faint."

Silence stretched between the siblings. It wasn't an awkward silence, but more of a comfortable stillness – feelings being expressed without words. "Sam and Tucker have been here every day, you know," she said softly, staring down at his fingers. "Even Valerie has been here a few times."

Her voice dropped to a murmur. "Sam's parents have had to really threaten her to get her to go home at night. I guess I understand how she feels."

She set his hand back down on the white blankets and fussed with the sheets for a moment. "I know you think I'm overprotective and never let you live you life…" she trailed off, a small smile setting itself on her face. "And I know I've said this before, Danny, but I was scared this time."

She got out of her chair and paced around the room. "Scared… and guilty. Danny…" she stopped, looking over at him. "A lot of this is my fault. I did so many things _wrong_, and I don't know how to make up for them. I don't know how to apologize. I didn't think twice when you vanished. I told so many lies to Mom and Dad to keep them from knowing you were gone. I just figured you were off fighting some ghost – I never thought for a second you were actually in trouble."

Jazz picked up a large 'Get Well Soon!' card from the table and flipped through it, still amazed at the number of names inside. "It took _days_ to sort out the fact that you were actually missing. That was all my fault. If I hadn't told all those lies we might have found you before it was too late."

"And then," she set down the card, unable to read it anymore because her vision had gotten so blurry, "and then Mom disappeared. Something inside of me cracked. I didn't know what to do." She stalked back over to the bed, leaning over her brother, staring him straight in the face. "_I_ didn't know what to do. I was being torn apart and you weren't there to make it better. You always knew what to say – something sarcastic or witty or something – and that was _missing_."

Her voice dropped to a raspy whisper, her eyes blinking hard to keep back the tears that were threatening to overflow. "When Mom was rescued and she told me about you… I broke on the inside. I couldn't even be _sad_. I was just… there. You were dead and I was alive… and that was that. I gave up on you." She sank back into her chair. "I let you die."

She leaned forwards, searching his face for some sign of life. "I need you to wake up and be my hero. I need to you tell me everything is going to be all right."

Danny was silent, the beeping of the monitors steady despite her emotion-filled monologue.

Jazz finally sat back in her chair, crossing her arms. Her blue eyes traveled to the window and gazed out at the beautiful day. "Fine," she said softly, wiping the wetness from the corner of her eyes and smiling softly. "I'll wait."

* * *

_ _Tucker leaned against his best friend's locker, scanning the school hallways. His eyes lit upon a beautiful girl talking to a few friends. Huge green eyes and long, blonde, curly hair._ _

Arranging his face into a sad, vaguely depressed, didn't-get-enough-sleep look, he started across the hallway. He'd spent most of the morning perfecting this look. _Danny'd love this_. He bumped into the green-eyed girl, spilling his armload of books dramatically onto the floor. "Sorry!" he gasped.

He stumbled backwards a few steps, then leaned down to pick up his books. He fumbled with a notebook, letting it tumble back to the ground. "Sorry," he mumbled again.

"It's okay," the girl sighed, leaning down and picking up one of his books. "Here."

Tucker pushed himself back to his feet, grabbing the book out of her hands and sending her a hopeful smile. "Thanks – Jessie, right?" he asked.

She nodded, then turned away and back to her friend. Tucker stood there for a few another few moments, shifting his weight from foot to foot. _Come on,_ he begged, _look at me. Ask me what I'm still doing here._

"Can I help you?" she finally snapped, turning around to stare at him.

"Well, you're really nice and…" he trailed off for a second, hugging his textbooks to himself, "and I was wondering if you'd want to do something with me, to – you know – take my mind off of things?" He let his brown eyes get as soft and sad as he possibly could.

Her green eyes gazed back into his dubiously. Then they hardened in rejection and Tucker barely stopped himself from flinching. He turned his gaze to the girl that Jessie had been talking to. He watched the blonde crumble. _Perfect._

"Why would I do something with _you_?" Jessie hissed sourly.

"Jessie," the blonde whispered, "this is Tucker… you know… _Danny Fenton's_ best friend?"

Tucker winced, trying his best to ignore the feeling of just having been punched. _Come on… please…_

"You're Tucker?" Jessie wondered, her harsh gaze melting slightly.

He smiled, working hard to keep it a sad smile. "Yeah. I'm going to the hospital after school tomorrow… and I kind of need some company afterwards. Someone to talk to, you know?" He let his eyes drop to his feet, digging his toe into the tiles.

"TUCKER!" Sam materialized at his shoulder. He almost levitated in shock, spinning around to stare at her. She was seething, her nose inches from his. "Don't you DARE use Danny like that! He's trapped in a hospital, almost dead, and you are USING him to get a GIRL?"

Her violet eyes were flashing dangerously. Tucker swallowed and backed away from her before retaliating. "I am not," he snapped, "I would never use Danny like that." He turned back to Jessie and gave her a small grin. "Get back to me?"

Jessie nodded, but edged off down the hallway, sending odd glances over her shoulder.

Tucker scowled. _Wonderful._ "Why did you do that?" he asked, twisting back to the irate Goth.

"You were _using_ him. Danny is not a thing!"

"Sam," he whispered. "There are a couple of things you're missing. One, Danny has been half-dead for months, so him lying around half-dead is nothing new. Two, I almost had a date – and one for Danny too. When he wakes up, I could have every girl in the school fawning over us. He'd like that. And three, Danny will be _fine_. He's strong."

"You act like nothing is wrong." Sam's eyes narrowed. "You act like Danny is going to walk around the corner any second. But he's not, Tucker Foley. He could die. And you're using him to get a date."

"Sam…"

"Don't!" Sam screamed, causing students all around them to drop books. "Don't even start. You're… you're…" she broke off with a frustrated yell. When she was out of breath, she glared at him. "Don't talk to me." Sam stormed off, shoving people out of her way if they weren't quick enough.

Tucker stood there, watching her go. He shook his head sadly, drifting back across the hallway to lean against Danny's locker. The hallway was rapidly emptying, but the young man just continued to stand there, staring across the hallway. _This is where we met to walk to the next class, swapping half-done homework._

The bell rang in the distance, but he didn't move for a few more moments. Finally, he shook his head sourly. _Danny'll be fine._ _Stop worrying._ "I need a girlfriend," he muttered darkly. After a few seconds of silence, he headed slowly to class, his mind falling back into the dark depths from which he had been able to yank himself out of during his chat with Jessie.

* * *

_Sam and Jack_

* * *

Sam collapsed onto her familiar chair at school, closing her eyes. She hated being stuck here at school while Danny was lying in the hospital. Jazz had promised to call her the instant Danny woke up, but she would rather be _there_, not here listening to some drivel on medieval literature. Closing her eyes, Sam rubbed her temples with her fingers

She heard Tucker drop into his chair on her left, ignoring him. There was still a bit of anger over him using Danny to get girls. But when she cracked open her eyes, the first thing she did was glance over at Tucker. He was absently playing with his PDA, waiting for class to start, a distant look on his face.

"Welcome to another exciting day of medieval literature," Mr. Lancer intoned, his voice not sounding 'excited' at all. Some days Sam couldn't decide if Lancer truly liked literature as much as he always said he did. Today was one of them: he sounded positively bored.

She drummed her fingernails against the desk, staring down at the blank page of her notebook. _I really should be taking notes._ But she made no move to grab her pencil. Her eyes drifted, fixing on the empty desk in front of her. In her half-asleep daze, she could almost imagine Danny walking into the classroom, a sour look on his face as Lancer handed him another detention slip for being late.

He'd drop into his desk after sending her a significant glance, then set about writing up what had just happened on a piece of paper, his black hair dangling in his eyes. _What would he write about today? It'd probably be something about the Lunch Lady since we had mystery meat for lunch. He'd even use that stupid code that he and Tucker designed. 'LL got into CH1 and made a MESS. She went AWOL and ended up at the NB. She's in the FT.'_

Suddenly a piece of paper was stuffed unceremoniously onto her desk. Blinking out of her daydream, she stared at it for awhile, trying to get her brain in gear. _What the…_

**I've been thinking.**

_That's not Danny's handwriting. It's legible._

With a glance at Tucker, she scribbled, **About what?**

**Why hasn't Danny woken up yet?**

Sam stared at the note. _What a stupid question. He didn't get any food for two weeks, was "stuck" in ghost mode the entire time, and he apparently vanished off the face of the planet for a few days. Of course he's not awake! S_he wrote: **Why?**

**It's been too long. He should have woken up days ago.**

Blink. _Days ago?_ **Why would he have woken up days ago? **As she handed the note back, she risked Lancer's wrath to turn and look at Tucker. He had a worried expression on his face.

**Based on how fast he usually heals, he should have been up and moving around after just a couple of days. But he's still unconscious. I can't figure out why.**

Sam tapped her pencil eraser against her lips, thinking. She trusted Tucker to have the facts straight and her heart was telling her that he was right. Something was wrong. **Any thoughts?** she scribbled.

**I think it may be that his human side is being healed… and maybe that's it.**

Sam could fill in the blank. **But his ghost side?**

**That's what I'm thinking about.**

She sat back in her chair, staring out the window. After a couple of seconds, she twisted her head around to glance at the clock. 2:14. _I need to get to the hospital, _she thought. _I need to help Danny. Tucker, Jazz, and I can solve any problem – we always have. We've saved the whole world more than once… but we need to be together._

Neither Lancer nor the clock seemed willing to help. 2:15. Time was just flying by.

* * *

The large man was sitting perfectly still in the hospital chair, his chin resting on his clenched fist, his eyes glued to the still form on the bed. The boy's messy black hair was barely visible under masses of tubes and wires. Only the steady sound of the heart monitor showed he was still alive.

His son.

His _half-ghost_ son.

Unable to take let his eyes drift away from the greenish blips on the monitor, he waited for his mind to come up with _something _useful. He needed to stop dwelling on the past. He needed too…

_How could he have hid it from me for all this time? This is Danny we're talking about - even I can read Danny like an open book._ _How come he never told us? We could have helped him._

Jack Fenton sighed, letting his eyes close. _Why is he still unconscious?_

Usually he was brimming with ideas, solutions to problems, and theories about how things should work. If it was any other day, he'd have so many things bouncing around in his head he wouldn't be able to concentrate. But not today. Today, the problem was lying on a bed a few feet away and the solution was nowhere to be seen. Not even a hint of an idea. Jack didn't even know where to _start_ to look for ideas - he was so used to them just popping into his head.

He was still staring moodily at his son, trying to get his brain to work, when a hand settled onto his shoulder. "Jack? You want to talk?" Maddie whispered.

"How can he be the Ghost-Boy?" Jack rumbled. _Why did that come out?_ He wrinkled his forehead, giving his head a small shake. _I've decided not to think about that anymore. Moving on…_

Maddie sighed. "We've been over this. You heard what Jazz and Tucker said earlier. It was an accident with the Ghost Portal."

"I know…"

"He's a hero, Jack." She knelt down, her caring eyes locking onto his. "Now, something's bothering you. What is it?"

His gaze swept away from Maddie and back onto their son, unknowingly echoing exactly what Tucker was asking Sam across town. "Why doesn't he wake up?"

"He went for so long without food and he's so weak right now. It'd be a miracle if he had already woken up. Remember what the doctors said?" She sank into the chair next to him, her voice soft, her hand rubbing slow circles on his back.

_I remember…_ Nothing would ever be able to wipe the memories from his mind. The look in Maddie's eyes when she heard what the doctors had to say; the tears trickling out of Jazz's eyes; the devastated expressions on Danny's friends' faces. He could still hear the young woman's words, her voice fading in and out in his mind. The important words would stick with him for an eternity.

_If he wakes up… might not remember anything… probably never be the same… low white blood count… infections… heart problems… arrhythmia… lower body temperature… rejecting medications… might never wake up…_

His son was very sick. He wasn't completely human, Sam and Tucker had known that Danny's heartbeat and breathing were slower than normal and that his body temperature had gone down. The fact that normal medications were making him sicker was nothing new – apparently Danny hadn't been able to take anything stronger than Advil for the past year. Even the low white blood cell count could be written off…

Which left all of them wondering why he was still in a coma.

"I'm Jack Fenton," he muttered under his breath, "I'm a world-renowned ghost expert and a brilliant scientist. My inventions are being used on seven continents and other planets." His voice grew hoarse. "My son could die right there, inches away, and there wouldn't be anything I could do about it." Eyes starting to burn, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"He'll be fine," Maddie whispered in his ear. "The doctor's say he should wake up any day."

"They've been saying that for days." His voice broke.

"Sam and Tucker think he'll be fine too." She hesitated, then stood up. "I'm going to get something to eat from the cafeteria. I'll bring you back some food, alright?" She smiled at him. "Danny will be fine. We'll think of something to help him."

Jack shook his head helplessly as she shut the door softly behind her. Without his usual thoughts clouding his head, he could think clearly. For the first time in their marriage, he could see right through her sunny smile and glittering eyes. Maddie was just as afraid as he was. She didn't want to think about losing their son. Again.

Quiet minutes passed as he stared down at the tile of the floor. "Why hasn't he woken up yet?" He should have, based on everything those three had told him. Danny should have been up and running around by now. Something was wrong.

He just needed to think. Logic solves problems. If the idea wasn't going to come to him, he was going to go to it. Gritting his teeth, he closed his eyes and let his powerful mind work. No matter what most of the world said, he truly was a brilliant scientist on the rare occasions when he was focused. And if he ever needed a reason to focus, it was lying in the bed in front of him.

_Start at the beginning…_ He leaned forwards, settling his elbows on his knees and resting his head on his hands. Keeping his eyes closed, he pictured the day that Danny had been kidnapped. He could remember it perfectly: every moment was etched into his brain with crystal clarity.

It had all started with brunch. And a tall, elegantly dressed lady named Jessica Oscura…

* * *

_Jazz and Sam_

* * *

It was the fanciest restaurant in town. Jazz stared up at the crystal chandeliers dangling from the ceiling, her eyes wide as the man lead them to their table. The Fentons had never even _thought _about eating at the _Tré Lounge_. There were no hamburgers, pepperoni pizzas, or sundaes piled high with fudge.

When her mom had received the invitation for brunch with a "Ghost Hunting Equipment Prospector", she had taken Jazz on a shopping spree. Glancing down at the dress she was wearing, Jazz figured at least the two of them fit the atmosphere of the place. Dad was still wearing his Day-Glo jumpsuit and Danny had 'dressed up' in a pair of jeans that lacked holes.

"Mrs. Fenton!" a lady called from the table, waving an elegantly gloved hand in the air. Jazz's eyes widened even further as following her parents over to the table. The lady wore sharp heels and a tailored green dress, and her a designer handbag accented a movie-star hair style.

Jazz grinned when Danny muttered something dark under his breath. He was here on protest - loud and continual protest. He had previously had the day planned for hanging out with his friends and watching the latest movies. But to their parents, apparently, meeting the world-renowned and famous Jessica Oscura trumped 'chilling.'

Mrs. Oscura held out a graceful hand for Jazz to shake. Easily six feet tall without her impossibly-high heels, Mrs. Oscura was lithe and powerful. Her carefully coiffed hair was caramel colored and her eyes were an odd shade of brown. When she sent Jazz a blinding smile, her eyes seemed to sparkle rust red for a moment.

Jazz was still watching when Mrs. Oscura reached out to shake Danny's hand. When their hands touched, her eyes seemed to flare red and Danny jerked his hand away, rubbing at it sourly. _What was that?_ Jazz wondered.

She tore her eyes off of the mysterious lady to glance at her parents. Dad was busy scanning the menu, mumbling about how he was supposed to order when he couldn't _read_ the menu. Mom was all business, pulling out various contraptions from the box they had brought with and setting them on the table.

Talking a seat, her eyebrows furrowed when Danny grabbed the seat next to hers and slid the chair over as far as possible. He was practically sitting in her lap. She sent him a reassuring smile. He did not smile back.

"Maddie," Mrs. Oscura smiled, showing every one of her perfect teeth, "I'm here, representing the GHS, to take a look at some of your most recent inventions and see if they merit GHS support and funding. If I find some inventions worth our time, the GHS will look in to purchasing the concept from you to mass produce the weapon for resale. Of course, you know the drill, we've done this before." She glanced over at Jack, who was drooling over the pictures in his menu, and her smile faltered slightly. "Perhaps we should eat first?"

"I'm not hungry," Danny muttered, his blue eyes never leaving Mrs. Oscura's face.

Jazz leaned over. "Danny?" she whispered, "What's wrong?"

Danny hesitated, his gaze flickering to her and then back to the lady. "I don't know," he hissed.

"Is she a ghost?"

Danny shook his head. "I don't know what it is. I just really want to leave. I don't trust her."

Jazz picked up her menu and watched her brother out of the corner of her eyes. Danny didn't seem aware of it, but Jazz was convinced Danny possessed some kind of ghost sixth-sense. He usually seemed to know when the day was going to go terribly wrong. Turning her eyes to Jessica Oscura, Jazz gazed at her over the top of the menu. Whoever she was, she kept glancing at Danny, frowning.

Lost deep into her own thoughts, Jazz jumped when the waiter appeared over her shoulder to ask what she would like to order. "Um…" she stalled, glancing down at the menu that she had been holding all this time without actually looking at, "I'll have the huevos con queso with fresh fruit."

"Thank you," the waiter said, taking her menu and vanishing.

"Now," Mrs. Oscura smiled and leaned forwards, her eyes bright and staring straight at Danny. "Daniel. It's interesting to find a young man that is so interested in ghost hunting."

Danny stared her down, his blue eyes showing nothing. "My parents fight ghosts. Not me," he said shortly.

"Danny…" Maddie chided softly.

Danny managed an obviously fake smile. "I'm not all that interested, no, Mrs. Oscura."

Mrs. Oscura laughed. "I'm sorry if I seem to be prying, Danny, but it's not often I get the chance to speak with the younger generation of ghost hunters, and I'm intrigued. Which of your parent's devices is your favorite invention?"

Jazz was about to speak up when Danny spoke. "I'm partial to the Fenton Bazooka. It sends ghosts back to the ghost zone without really hurting them." Jazz looked at him in surprise. Out of all of their parent's inventions, the Ghost Gabber and the Fenton Bazooka were the two he complained about most often.

"Don't like to see ghosts get hurt, hmm, Danny?" Mrs. Oscura said softly, her eyes boring into Danny's head. Jazz felt the hairs on the back of her head stand up. The conversation had suddenly taken a turn and a strange undercurrent ran between the speakers. She shivered.

"I don't suppose I do," Danny said, equally softly, his blue eyes narrowing dangerously. "You don't need to torture them."

Mrs. Oscura's smile became feral. "You must spend a lot of time in your parents' lab. I suppose every so often there are small mishaps? Accidents? You've never been _hurt_ in one, have you?"

_Did she just… What? _Jazz blinked. _I need to get her off of this topic._ "So… Mom… why don't you show her the Fenton Bazooka?" She looked up at her mom, who was staring back and forth between Danny and Mrs. Oscura, looking confused. Jazz thought that she would need to say something more when her clueless father took over.

"That's a wonderful idea, Jazzy!" he bellowed, almost vaulting over the table to pull the Fenton Bazooka out of the box of inventions and waved it around in the air, completely destroying the dangerous undertone of the table.

Danny sent one final glare in Jessica Oscura's direction before she was overtaken by an overly eager orange jumpsuit. He growled softly, glancing in Jazz's direction. "I'm going to the bathroom. Don't be too surprised when I don't come back." He pushed his chair out from the table and stormed away.

Her mother looked up, her eyes following her son to the bathrooms and then trailing over to gaze into Jazz's. Jazz blinked in surprise when she saw the understanding in her mother's eyes. Maddie raised an eyebrow, asking a silent question. Jazz smiled slightly, shaking her head. Then, to Jazz's further surprise, her mother turned her gaze to Mrs. Oscura, her eyes narrowing a bit in suspicion and biting her lip slightly.

Neither of them were terribly shocked when Danny never came back to the table, and her father never apparently noticed, his mind taken up with thoughts of his inventions. Mrs. Oscura, however, kept glancing at the bathrooms, an odd smile flickering across her face each time.

Jazz spent the rest of the brunch ignoring her father's ramblings, staring at the elegant and mysterious lady. _Who is she? __What does she know? And do we have to do anything about it?  
_

* * *

Sam leaned back against the light post, staring up at the battling ghosts. Danny could have destroyed this ghost almost a half-hour ago if he'd have truly wanted to, but he was drawing the battle out, letting off steam. She couldn't really blame him. Danny had been almost _crackling_ with energy when they'd met up at lunch. Although… she was starting to pity Technus a little. Just a _little_.

When Danny finally sucked the completely trounced Technus into the thermos and drifted down to hover next to her, he was still breathing deeply, his glowing green eyes flickering with repressed anger. "Feeling better?" she asked.

He sent a small smile her way. "A bit."

"Are you going to tell me what this was really all about?" Sam asked. "Technus couldn't have ticked you off that badly."

Danny, after glancing up and down the deserted alley, turned back into his human form. His blue eyes still simmered angrily, but he managed to grin at her as they started walking up the street. "Remember that Ghost Hunting Society lady I told you about?"

"You had brunch with her."

"Yeah." Danny was silent. Sam paused, watching him walk a few steps ahead of her. His whole body quivered with… _something_. He was really on edge. Sam bit her lip, catching up. Danny, recently, had always known when _something_ was up in Amity Park. This was no different.

"What about it?"

Danny stared at the ground as they walked. "The second I saw her, and those odd red eyes of hers, I wanted to run in the other direction as fast as possible. I don't know why, Sam. I've never felt the desire to run that strong before. I almost did." His voice was quiet, his eyes troubled. Then he laughed. "I guess I did run away."

Sam punched his arm reassuringly. "So? Who cares? Maybe she's just creepy."

Danny shook his head. "No, it's more than that. She narrowed in on _me_ the instant I shook her hand. You should have felt the goose bumps that raced up my spine when I touched… whatever she is. Then she started asking me all these questions…" Danny trailed off.

"Are you ever going to see her again?"

"No." Danny blinked at her.

"Then stop worrying about it." Sam grinned at him. "You need to take your mind off of it. Come on. _Dead Teacher VI: the Special Silver Extended Edition_, is playing in the old cinema on 5th street. I know that's your favorite one. We'll call Tucker and get him to meet us there."

He looked up at her, a small smile on his face. "Yeah, you're probably right, Sam."

Sam rolled her eyes. "Of course I'm right, Ghost Boy. Let's go. I'll buy."

As they walked up the street, Sam couldn't help but glance at Danny out of the corner of her eye. His eyes were still troubled and on edge. She sighed. Danny might not be aware of his weird "Sense of Impending Doom" (or so Tucker had named it), but Sam was. And she knew that it was still going off like mad. Whatever it was that was setting it off, it was still coming, and it wasn't going to be good.

* * *

_Tucker and Jack_

* * *

As the sun was setting, Tucker found himself in his usual spot in front of his computer, waiting for his parents to call and say that supper was ready. Although it was usual for his friends to be over, the fact that only one of them was present was bit out of the ordinary. Danny had left for dinner, but Sam was still hanging over the back of his computer chair, elbows resting on his shoulders.

"Jessica Oscura," she commanded when he loaded the internet and found a search page.

"Shouldn't Danny be part of this?" He shot a glance over his shoulder at her. "It was _his_ meeting after all."

"He's taking time off."

Tucker rolled his eyes. "Does he know that?"

"Nope," she grinned. "Type, techno-geek."

He entered 'Jessica Oscura' into a Google search and sighed when close to three million partial hits came back. _At least it's a start. We can refine the search later._ "Let's see," he mumbled, scrolling through the long list of links. Clicking on one that seemed helpful, he smiled. "Oscura means 'dark' in Spanish. Neat."

"And yet, completely unhelpful."

_Some people have no respect for random factoids_. Closing the link, he continued to scroll, scanning through summaries. By the end of the page the links were completely irrelevant, so he scrolled back to the top. "Jessica Oscura International Ghost Hunting Society," he muttered as he typed.

This time, the search was better. Tucker grinned as he clicked on the second link – heading them straight for the GHS's homepage. Within seconds, a short biography had popped up. "Perfect."

The Goth leaned over, her bushy, black hair getting in the way. "Hey!" Tucker protested, leaning over to try and read. With a scowl, he kicked his chair away from the computer and transferred the webpage to his PDA. Pushing Sam out of the way wasn't an option; the boot-shaped bruise on his shin was proof of that.

But he kept the computer chair. Sam could stand. It served her right.

Scrolling through the page, he skimmed over most of the propaganda before finding the actual biography. "She's a prominent ghost hunting equipment specialist," Tucker read, "holding patents for seventeen ghost weapons – four of which have been considered 'ground breaking.'"

Sam snorted. "The Fentons invent seventeen new ghost weapons every week. And if you count 'ground breaking' as the ones that don't explode – they've got at least four."

"Yeah, but the Fentons don't usually bother to take out patents for their stuff, so it doesn't count in the world's eyes. What did Danny say? They've got five patents? And one of them is for that ecto-microwave that makes everything come to life."

"Hey - you never know when you'll need a shield of living hot dogs." Sam grinned sarcastically over her shoulder at him before turning back to the computer. "And I won't even get into my usual rant about processed meat and the ethical dilemma of bringing it _back_ to life just to eat it."

"She's worked for the GHS for nine years," Tucker continued, chuckling at the memory of how Sam had reacted when she found out that Mr. Fenton had actually _eaten_ those living wieners, "and is on the current governing board. According to this, she knows more about ghosts and spectral lore than anybody alive." He raised an eyebrow. "Other than Danny, of course."

"And us, probably." Sam tapped the screen, continuing to read. "She's married. Apparently, her whole family is really big into ghosts. Her parents have published books about the paranormal and her husband gives lectures on 'spectral incidents' – whatever that means. Her brother runs the…" she trailed off, her eyes growing wide.

Tucker followed the test, his PDA nearly dropping out of his hands when he caught up to her. "No way," he whispered. _That's not possible. The coincidence is… it can't be. Not him._ "No wonder why Danny's doom sense is going off so strongly. Nobody in that family can be a good thing." Tucker shivered. "We need to call Danny and warn him."

Sam nodded, her eyes worried. "I'll call him. You find out more information."

After she left, Tucker picked at his PDA and sighed. Danny was in big trouble this time. _Danny can't stand that guy. He was really messed up from being controlled like that – he's never really gotten over it. I can still see it in his eyes every once-and-a-while when he looks at Sam. The idea that he almost killed her…_ He shook his head, opening up a new window and getting to work.

"Her brother runs the Circus Gothica," he muttered darkly as he typed. "_Freakshow_."

* * *

"Dad? Is Danny down there?" Jazz called down the stairs.

"No," he shouted back. Distantly he heard Jazz talking to someone on the phone, explaining that Danny wasn't there. Jack dropped into a chair in the kitchen, rubbing his chin. He picked up a piece of fudge – a German chocolate variety with small, toasted peanuts – and got ready to _think_.

He always thought best with fudge, and Danny's weird behavior earlier today gave him plenty to contemplate. He wasn't _that_ dense. He did notice, eventually, when his son didn't come back from the bathroom. So what if it had taken nearly an hour? And he _had_ felt the tension when Jessica Oscura and his son were talking. Reaching across the table like that to break that odd undercurrent hadn't been an accident.

_Where is Danny anyway?_ "Have you seen Danny?" he asked Jazz as she walked into the kitchen..

She shook her head, then stopped, looking at him oddly. She did that quite a bit recently. "He's probably over at Tucker's still."

He raised an eyebrow. "Then who was on the phone, Jazz?"

"Um…" she hesitated, "just someone from school." Jazz hurried out of the room.

Jack half-closed his eyes. _I wish I wasn't too old to roll my eyes. This would be the perfect situation_. He grinned to himself. _Jazz has never been able to lie_.

He bit into his fudge, thoughts churning in his brain. He stared at the box of inventions that still sat on the kitchen table where he had dropped it. _Danny was supposed to clean that up._ _Where is he?_

Finished off his piece of fudge, he brushed a few crumbs off of his jumpsuit, and stood up. He grabbed the keys to the Fenton RV. _I'm going to go find him_.

He really had no reason to. Danny could take care of himself. There were two more hours until curfew.

But he was going to go find him anyway.

* * *

_Jack and Sam_

* * *

Jack stopped the Fenton Family Ghost Assault Vehicle by the side of the road next to the park about an hour later. "Oh, who am I kidding?" he muttered. "I won't be able to find Danny on my own. He's fine. He's probably even home by now." He sighed, putting the car into park and yanking the keys out. "I need to take a walk to clear my head."

As he crunched up the path, Jack's mind wandered, but it kept coming back to Danny and the fact that he hadn't come home for supper. Not that it was an uncommon circumstance… but for some reason it was really bugging him tonight. _I hate this. Too many thoughts. _Jack shook his head hard, throwing himself onto one of the park benches and staring up at the sky. The stars were starting to come out.

A green streak flew through the air over his head, followed by a lean figure dressed in black and silver with shocking white hair and green eyes. "The ghost kid," Jack whispered, following his path with his eyes. "I wonder who he's fighting."

He glanced back at the GAV, thinking about grabbing more weapons, but then decided against it. He would lose the ghost kid if he waited. The small ecto-rifle attached to his jumpsuit would have to do.

Racing up the trail, he followed the flashing green lights of the spectral battle. Slowing down near the edge of the clearing, he hesitated. _One small ecto-rifle isn't going to stand a chance against two ghosts._ He held still, the flaring lights tempting him to get closer to see what was going on. _I'll just hide in the bushes until the ghost kid finishes off the other ghost, then I can take him._ Grinning at his plan, he yanked out his ecto-rifle and crept into the bushes. _Me! World renowned Jack Fenton! I'll catch the ghost kid!_

Peering out into the clearing from the safety of the shadows, Jack's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. That odd lady from this morning – the one from the brunch – was in the clearing, hovering easily above the ground on a jet sled. It whined quietly, just like that Red Huntress's sled, sending visible waves of hot air boiling against the grass. She had a rather large gun positioned over her shoulder, pointing it lazily in the direction of the ghost kid.

"Go away and leave my home alone!" the ghost ordered, his eyes glowing brightly in the near-dark. He clenched his fingers in a tight fist and energy crackled around him.

"I don't want your _home_," the lady sneered, her voice easily audible over the whine of her jet sled. "I want _you_. And your mother."

"Mom?" The ghost looked startled for a moment before glaring at her. "You can't have her. She's mine."

Jack shook his head from the bushes. _Ghosts don't have mothers – not even this one. What are they talking about?_

The lady laughed, her throaty chuckle echoing around the park and making a shiver run down Jack's back. When she stopped, nothing in the park was moving. The crickets had stopped chirping, the frogs had stopped calling, and nothing rustled expect for the wind through the trees. "You can have what's left of her when I'm done with her."

Energy visibly flared around the young ghost. "What do you want with her?" he snarled. Jack blinked, he'd never seen the ghost acting so angry. Usually the ghost kid was more playful and sarcastic then truly furious.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" she asked, taking a pot shot at the ghost with her cannon.

Dodging easily, the ghost formed an ecto-blast in his hand, but he didn't fire it. He held it in his hands, biting his lip, apparently thinking. _I was right! _Jack thought, smiling, _the ghost kid doesn't like to shoot humans. I can use that…_

"Yes, I'd love to know. Why don't you spill all your evil plans?"

"My _evil_ plans?" the lady mocked. "My plans are never _evil_, ghost-child. They are _destiny_." She gestured grandly with her free hand.

"Destiny?" the ghost prompted.

"Enough," she hissed sourly, waving her hand up and above her head. Instantly a dozen spotlights appeared and centered on the ghost, who was forced to drop the charged ecto-blast to shield his eyes from the impossibly bright light. "You are coming with me."

Jack flinched in surprise when a half-dozen men jumped out of the bushes of the clearing, all of them leveling high-tech guns at the blinded ghost. The kid never stood a chance when all of them began to shoot. Yelping in pain, the ghost fell to the ground only beginning to struggle when the men moved in to surround him.

It took only a few seconds and the men were backing away, their guns still pointing in the kid's direction. The ghost was now sporting thick manacles on his wrists and ankles and was being roughly dragged to his feet by one of the men. Green ectoplasm dripped out of the multiple cuts on the kid's face and body, his supernatural eyes still closed against the brilliant spotlights.

Jack felt a stab of pity in his stomach. The ghost looked so small and powerless, a hapless teenager caught in something he couldn't handle. Besides… he looked so much like his son just then…

The lady suddenly shot the ghost again. Screaming and falling to his knees, the ghost twitched, fighting against the odd reddish light that was surrounding him. When it faded away, he was left panting, his head hanging. The lady laughed again, coming forwards to grab the kid by the chin. Hauling his head up to stare at him, she smiled when he managed to crack his eyes open for a moment. "You are unique, boy. A hybrid – a child of both worlds. A bridge between the realms. A once in a lifetime opportunity."

Silvering slightly, Jack watched the malevolent grin spreading across her face. There was no compassion in her expression. "That last shot," she continued, "will keep you a ghost until the full moon." The grin grew as the desperation in the ghost's face became more pronounced. "You like it? It's a modification of a small device I _borrowed_ from a certain friend of yours."

As she turned to walk away, the ghost spoke up, his voice hoarse and drained. "Why until the full moon?"

She laughed. "Why, I can't sacrifice you _before_ the full moon." With that, the men dragged the nearly-unconscious ghost kid away, the lady following on her jet sled.

Jack, however, just sat in the bushes, going over what he had heard in his mind. It took him nearly a half-hour before he managed to drag himself out of the bushes and back to the GAV, all thoughts of searching for his son out of his head.

_Sacrifice?_ he wondered as he drove home. _Who is this ghost kid? Why would she need to _keep_ him a ghost? Isn't he one all the time? What's a hybrid?_

He wandered into the house, his mind a million miles away. He slumped onto the couch and picked up a random ghost device from the living room table. A small part of his mind knew that it was the next-generation ghost tracker, but he just stared blankly at it. He didn't even acknowledge Jazz when she came into the room and turned on the TV.

"Jazz, have you seen Danny?" Maddie asked, coming into the living room.

"Oh… he called and said he was staying over at Tucker's. I forgot to tell you." Jazz smiled that odd smile at her mother.

Maddie smiled and nodded, going back into the kitchen.

But Jack just continued to sit on the couch, staring at the invention in his hands, thoughts fluttering through his brain like butterflies. _Jazz is a horrible liar… why would she lie about where Danny is? Why do I care about the ghost boy at all? How can he have a mother? What sacrifice? Why do I get shivers up my back when I think of Jessica Oscura?_

And, cutting through all of them: _Where is Danny?_

* * *

Monday morning found Sam sitting at her desk, staring dismally at the chair that belonged to one Daniel Fenton. It was an empty chair. As in, Danny wasn't in it. Which meant that Danny wasn't currently in school. This thought inevitably brought up the question of where Danny might actually be. Which lead to the answer that she most despised: she had no idea.

Sam snarled softly, turning her attention back to the teacher that was droning away in the front of the room. Last night, Danny had seemed to drop off the radar. According to Jazz, he hadn't been home when she went to bed and he wasn't there when she got up. Danny _could_ be off fighting ghosts – this was Jazz's favorite theory – but Sam thought otherwise. _He wouldn't be gone this long if he was. He would have told us._

She glanced over at Tucker, who was staring at the classroom door, as if waiting for Danny to walk in. He shot her a look. "He's fine," Tucker mouthed.

Sam snorted. _Unlikely_, her mind said. Especially after what she and Tucker had managed to dig up about Jessica Oscura last night. She tuned out the teacher and scanned the printouts one more time.

Jessica Oscura was the only sister to one Frederik Issak Showenhower (better known as Freakshow) - a maniac Gothic circus ring leader that was obsessed with all things ghosts. He had even possessed an old family heirloom that allowed him to control the dead. Even though the crystal had been smashed, Freakshow still gave Danny the creeps. Danny refused to talk about it, but Sam knew that he was still having problems dealing with what had happened. If Freakshow was in the picture it was going to be bad news.

On the fortunate side, the insane circus man was still locked away with the Guys In White. Tucker had double-checked last night and had even managed to hack into the surveillance system to get a picture of him sitting in a cell. Even better, Jessica Oscura had checked out of her hotel earlier that day – she wasn't even in Amity Park anymore.

She dropped the papers onto her desk and sighed, slumping down in her seat. When she had left Tucker's last night – after calling Jazz one last time and getting reassurances that Danny was just out fighting some stupid ghost and would be home soon – Tucker had still been typing away on his computer. Tucker had smiled at her, saying cheerily that he'd see them _both_ in the morning.

Only Danny hadn't shown up to walk her to school… but that wasn't that strange. And she hadn't seen him at school that morning… but that wasn't too odd either. And Danny was now late for class. Sam shifted in her chair, crossing her arms and letting her eyes stray back to Danny's empty chair. That wasn't an uncommon event also. But still…

Sam sighed, her attention wandering over to Tucker. He was still gazing at the door, but now he had a piece of paper clenched in his hands. It looked like a piece of computer paper that had been folded into a small square. Tucker picked it up, fiddled with it, tapped his chin with a corner, and then set it down. Every few minutes he would repeat this little scene. Sam rolled her eyes, a small smile creeping onto her lips. He didn't seem to be aware he was doing it.

_He's worried_… Sam decided, her smile vanishing, her eyes straying back to the door, which remained stubbornly closed and Danny-less. _And he's hiding something._

* * *

_ _Tucker, Sam, Jazz, and Jack_ _

* * *

Tucker sighed as he sank into the chair for his fourth-period biology class. For the first time, he was thankful that Sam had refused to take the class with him and Danny. He didn't think he could take another period of sitting next to her. Sam was slowly working herself into a frenzy worrying about Danny. Which, in turn, was quickly wearing on his nerves.

_And she doesn't even know everything…_

Flinching away from the thought, he caught himself idly flipping the folded paper around again. He forced himself to set the paper down and stop fidgeting. Instead, he rubbed his stinging eyes and stifled a yawn.

One of the things he was keeping secret from Sam was the fact that he hadn't gotten a moment of sleep last night. After she'd left, he'd stayed up late into the night monitoring the bots crawling around the internet. It had taken until nearly three o'clock in the morning for them to send back something interesting.

He picked the paper back up and stared down at it. _This_ is what they came back with, and he'd been unsuccessfully trying to get it out of his head since. This little piece of paper had kept him from getting any sleep.

Ignoring the teacher, he slowly unfolded the paper and stared down at the words scrawled across the paper. It was a photograph of something extremely old, the words barely legible. It had taken over an hour of working with his media tools to make out what it said.

_Beholdeth ye whom command the dead,  
_ _Shrink not from thee, thy do not dread,  
_ _The time of _ _ **Moon** _ _ shall seal thee fast,  
_ _Make _ _ **Light** _ _ thy destiny of past.  
_ _Out of _ _ **Shadows** _ _ whence thy come,  
_ _And from _ _ **Darkness** _ _ powers will thrum,  
_ _When a sacrifice thy hast Create,  
_ _Of a child bound through _ _ **Fate  
** _ _To live a life touched by Death,  
_ _Whose Afterlife is marred by _ _ **Breath  
** _ _Upon the Sacred Grounds it dies,  
_ _And hidden therein thy _ _ **Future** _ _ lies._

Next to the ancient poem – which sent chills down Tucker's back every time he read it – were two crossed symbols. One was of an odd-looking, black pendant on a chain. The other, which crossed the chain at an angle, was a very familiar-looking staff. Glowing crystal ball surrounded by black bats… Freakshow's staff. The same staff that had been used to control Danny a few months ago.

It had been the image of the staff that had led him to the webpage. It'd been a bit of a gamble to program that into the image search, but it had paid off. He had… _something_. He wasn't too sure what it was, but it was definitely _something_.

Of course, Freakshow's staff was broken into a million little pieces. Danny had dropped it off a cliff when he was saving Sam, and Tucker had gone back a few days later to pick up the pieces. They were buried under his bed in a shoebox with all the rest of his ghost stuff. Freakshow himself was locked up in a nice, little cell.

That only left the weird pendant. And Freakshow's sister. And the fact that the full moon was coming up. And the knowledge that Danny's doom sense had been going off. And the fact that Danny was MIA. And…

Tucker couldn't help but figure there was _some_ connection between them.

He sighed, glancing up again at the door. Still no Danny.

Folding the paper back up into its small square, he tapped it worriedly against his chin. A vision of Sam fluttered through his head as the teacher began passing out today's biology experiment. _Really, I've got no proof that this had anything to do with Danny_, he tried to convince himself. He started in surprise when a tray with a mushroom dropped onto his table.

Reaching over to pick apart the mushroom, he let his thoughts drift. Poor Sam, she was like his sister, and she had been practically chewing her fingernails third period. He hated to see her like this. She was slowly, but surely, going crazy trying to figure out where Danny was.

Pulling the cap off the stem, he dropped it onto the tray, staring down at the mushroom stem in his fingers. _I don't want to be here. I want to be…_ He trailed off, his eyes blurring as he just stared at the mushroom. _I don't know where I want to be. Just not here doing this._

A blink brought the mushroom – and the folded paper – back into focus. _So what do I do next? Do I show that poem-thing to Sam? _He glanced at the clock, watching it tick the seconds away until lunch. _Do I wait and see if Danny shows up later? I don't want her to worry even more…_

"When a sacrifice thy hast create, of a child bound through fate," he muttered darkly, tossing the mushroom back into the tray. He was going to fail whatever they were supposed to be doing, but he couldn't bring himself to care. _Sacrifice… Danny…_

_But really, I've got no proof…_ He wrinkled his nose, his eyes trailing over to the window. _If she knows this she'll just be up all night worrying_. He hesitated, rethinking that. _Okay, m__ore likely: she'll drag out every weapon the Fenton's have ever created and start pulling the town apart, brick-by-brick, looking for him_.

He snickered softly at that thought before dropping the paper into his bag. _I'm not going to tell her yet_. He rubbed his arm, already feeling the pains of the future beating he was going to get when she found out he knew and was hiding this from him.

_I'll tell her when I find some proof… she doesn't need to worry… or destroy the town…_

Tucker dropped his head down to his desk. _There is no way for this to end well._

* * *

His plan to not tell her worked for eleven minutes and twenty-three seconds – not that he was timing it or anything. The second he stepped foot into the lunchroom, Sam jumped him, pinning him against the wall and glaring at him. Her eyes, fiery amethyst, were inches from his. "You're hiding something from me and I want to know what it is."

Tucker squirmed under her gaze. "I have no idea what you're talking about," he lied, trying to settle his backpack so it wasn't digging so painfully into his spine.

"Tucker. David. Foley." Her words were separated by long periods of silence. "Don't lie to me."

He winced. "Alright, I give up. It was a bad plan."

"Tell," she snapped, not moving a muscle.

"Could you move please?" His back was really starting to hurt.

Sam's smile was feral. "Tell."

"It's in my backpack. I can't get it unless I move."

She blinked, her mind processing that. "That paper you've been playing with all day. That's it, right?"

Nodding, Tucker smiled a bit when Sam drew away from him. He dug through his backpack and pulled the crinkled paper out, handing it over.

"Why were you hiding it from me?" Sam snatched the paper. Her fingers closed protectively around its contents, almost like it held the answers to all of life's problems.

Tucker hesitated, glancing around. "Ididn'twantyoutoworry," he blurted.

"What?" Her purple eyes narrowed.

"I didn't want you to worry. Really, there's no proof…" he trailed off, his eyes watching her carefully.

Even though he saw it coming, he wasn't prepared for the punch that knocked him to the ground. "Danny's missing and you're _hiding_ things from me?" Sam snarled, turned on her heel, and stormed away, other students carefully keeping out of her path.

"Darn it," Tucker whispered, rubbing his stomach and getting slowly to his feet. His eyes were a mass of worry. "Danny's gone and Sam's going to kill herself at this rate."

He closed his eyes and bowed his head for a moment. "What do I do?" he asked the world in general. As usual, nobody answered.

* * *

Sam leaned against the flag pole, her eyes fixed on a cloud floating in the sky. She took at deep shuddering breath. A piece of paper with an odd prophecy and an even weirder picture fluttered out of her fingers. She didn't bother to pick it up.

* * *

After school, Jazz hung around the doors, waiting for Sam and Tucker. _And Danny_, she whispered to herself. _Danny's fine_.

When Tucker strode out of the school by himself, his mind obviously elsewhere, Jazz fell into step beside him. "Tucker?"

The boy jumped when Jazz mentioned his name. He stared at her, his eyes worried.

"Where's Sam?" _And Danny_, she added.

"Haven't seen her since lunch," he muttered, rubbing his stomach.

Jazz walked with him a few more minutes in silence. "Have you seen…"

"No," Tucker interrupted.

"Do you know where…"

"No." This time his voice was harsh and angry. Tucker glanced into her eyes, an odd light shining in them. Then he picked up the pace and got ahead of her. "I've got a lot of stuff to do, Jazz." He looked over his shoulder. "I'm sure Danny's fine." He smiled.

_Liar,_ Jazz whispered in her mind. "Call me if you figure anything out," she said softly.

Tucker nodded once before leaving her behind. _He's probably heading over to Sam's house_, she thought. Not for the first time, she felt out of the loop.

Jazz meandered home. Their short conversation had told her a few things. One: Tucker and Sam knew more than they were telling her. Two: if Sam was skipping school, whatever it was they knew wasn't good. Three: they weren't entirely sure what was going on… they would have told her.

Oh, and four: Danny wasn't going to be home when she got there.

* * *

Jack, who was sitting in his son's hospital room over three weeks later, scratched his chin, still thinking over those first few horrible days. Maddie had filed a police report Monday night and then was kidnapped nearly a week later. Three days after that she was rescued. Then four days later, Danny was found. Now, his son had been unconscious for another week.

He closed his eyes and, for the first time since that awful Sunday, a tear trickled down his cheek. He stood up, going over to stare down at Danny. His mysterious, brave, and powerful son.

"Wake up, Danny," he said, as if his voice alone would wake his son up.

"Why don't you wake up?"

* * *

_Tucker and Jazz_

* * *

_Danny had never been so still._

Tucker fiddled with the PDA in his pocket as he stood at the door to his best friend's hospital room. Hazel eyes flickered from the wire-encased boy to the large man sitting in the chair. He bit his lip, taking in the dazed expression in the man's eyes.

Taking a step into the room, he glanced warily at the beeping monitors, dripping IV solutions, and flashing lights. The smell of the various cleaning solutions stung his nose, not quite masking the smell of old, sick, and dying people. Overhead lights buzzed and gave everybody a sickly pallor. Dropping into a chair next to the man in orange, he tried to push the _hospital-ness_ out of his mind.

_Beep, beep, beep_…

Tucker cleared his throat loudly, hoping the man would look over at him.

No response.

He coughed a bit louder, being careful not to breathe through his nose. The thick taste of the disinfectants was making his tongue burn – he didn't need to smell it too. The large man didn't seem to notice his existence. Furrowing his eyebrows, Tucker reached over and tapped the man's arm. "Mr. Fenton?" he asked.

Still nothing. The man just sat there and stared in the direction of his son.

Tucker flinched away from a light that flickered in the corner of his eye. He jerked his head around, eyes wide, but the light was already gone. _Clam down, Tucker, you're fine. It's just a stupid light._ Taking a deep breath to slow his racing heart, then coughing from the contaminated hospital air, he leaned forwards in his chair and tapped his heel apprehensively against the ground.

_Come on, think of something. _Listening to the infernal beeping of the various monitors and the persistent buzz of the lights was throwing off his brain. _How anybody gets anything done in all this noise and stink is beyond me._

Unable to come up with a better solution, he stood up and moved between Danny and Mr. Fenton. "Excuse me?" he asked loudly, staring into the man's eyes.

Mr. Fenton blinked once, but otherwise didn't move. From here, Tucker could tell that the man's eyes weren't actually focused on Danny – he was gazing out into space. A nurse walked by, one of the wheels on her cart squeaking and setting every one of Tucker's nerves on edge.

_Okay, that's it. I'm getting out of here. _"I don't know if you're listening or not," he started, "but I've got this theory about Danny." He shifted from foot to foot, waiting. "Mr. Fenton?"

The man just continued to sit there, blinking absently, the muscles in his face lax and expressionless.

"You know how Danny is half human and half ghost?" He didn't bother to wait for a response. "Well, the way I figure it is that we've fixed the human half of him," he gestured at the demonic equipment in the hospital room, "but what about the ghost half? I mean, we don't know most of what happened to him… but from what Mrs. F. said, she know that his ghost half got ripped apart really badly. Maybe it's sick too. Maybe that's what's keeping from waking up."

Mr. Fenton showed no signs of having heard him. Tucker sighed, glancing back around the room. Flashing lights, high-pitched beepings, distant drippings and buzzings, and the impossible smell of the room was getting to him. His heart was beating rapidly, his imagination supplying his brain with images of torture and death.

_Fight or flight indeed,_ he thought sourly, digging his fingernails into his palms to prevent himself from walking around the check and make sure there wasn't some dead guy stuffed in the closet or an insane doctor hiding on the other side of Danny's bed. "That's what I think, anyway," he said through clenched teeth, forcing himself to ignore the room. "I don't know how to fix a ghost in a coma, but I'll work on it."

Barely preventing himself from dashing out the room, he paused at the door. "Maybe he needs a ghost hospital, huh?" he laughed softly, letting himself out of the room.

Moving as quickly as possible without actually breaking into a run, he started towards the front door, fighting the growing panic that was enveloping his mind. Who knew what was behind the closed doors he passed? The rooms were where people lay, dying and sick, unable to escape the horror of the hospital.

It wasn't until he was safely outside, leaning against a tree and forcing his breathing back into a normal rhythm, that he began to think properly again. With one last glance at the hospital that had ensnared his best friend, Tucker headed home to dig through the internet again.

Left alone in the hospital room, the silent father and son were lost in their own little worlds. Amidst the beepings and the drippings of the assorted medical equipment, Mr. Fenton finally closed his eyes. "Ghost hospitals?" he whispered into the disinfected air. "Is there such a thing?"

* * *

Jazz wrinkled her nose and tossed the book back onto the kitchen table. "No!" she screamed. "No! No! No!"

She stared at the collection of books on the table. They were stacked up until she couldn't see over them anymore. "Every last one of my parent's books. Nothing!" She seethed to herself, muttering angrily. "Books have never failed me before. And they will not today. There is a solution. There needs to be."

"Um… Jazz?" came a voice from behind her.

Jazz whirled around, snarling. "What?"

Sam winced, quickly taking in Jazz's blood-shot eyes, tangled hair, and clenched fists. "Tucker went over to the hospital to talk to your dad…"

"And…" Jazz fumed.

The Goth blinked. "And I came over to talk to you… but if you're that mad at me…" She trailed off.

Jazz closed her eyes and tried to relax. "I'm not mad at you Sam. You're just an easier target than what I really am mad at."

"Oh."

She tried to smile. "Did you guys come up with something?"

"Yeah." Sam smiled at her, then walked over and starting sorting through some of the books on the kitchen table. "We think that Danny's human half is being cured, but not his ghost half."

Jazz fought to not roll her eyes. _Duh, _she hissed in her mind_, I figured that out this morning_. "Anything else?" she asked, surprised to hear it come out much more pleasantly than expected.

Sam shook her head.

Closing her eyes again, Jazz gritted her teeth. _I'm not mad at Sam_, she said mantra-style, _I'm frustrated at my lack of knowledge. I'm frustrated by not getting the answers. I'm worried about my brother. I'm scared for his safety. I'm NOT mad at Sam_. "I'm not getting anywhere either."

The younger girl picked up a book. "You sure there's nothing in here?"

Jazz wrestled with the desire to snap at her. "Yes," she finally hissed. "I'm sure."

"Then we need to go get a different book."

"There are no other books." Jazz pulled out a chair and sat in it, rubbing her temples. "My parents own every single book written by reputable authors who actually know something about ghosts. Every book."

Sam was silent a moment. "Reputable authors?" she asked finally.

"Please don't go into your usual rant about who reputable authors are and where to find good information…" Jazz trailed off.

"No, I meant what do you mean by reputable authors?"

"Huh?" Jazz looked her, her forehead furrowed. "People who know what they are talking about. You know… researchers." _Where is she going with this?_

"People?" Hesitating, a grin grew on Sam's face. "As in humans?"

"Yeah," Jazz snapped. "As in who else?"

Sam laughed slightly. "If you want to cure a human, you go to a book written by a human, right?" She shut the book she was flipping through and set it carefully back on top of the teetering pile on the edge of the table. "So… thought follows through that if you want to cure a ghost, you go find a book written by…" she raised an eyebrow, waiting for Jazz to fill in the rest.

"A ghost? What ghost writes books?"

Sam grinned, her violet eyes twinkling. "The Ghost Writer."

* * *

Lounging on the hard cot in her cell with the _Amity Park Gazette_ unfolded in front of her, Jessica Oscura laughed softly. She scanned an article about the Fenton boy, snickering when she reached his current health status. "He's still not awake, huh?" she whispered. "Well, of course not."

She bit her lip, wondering for a second. "The kid was stronger than I thought." Suddenly, her eyes blazed with anger. "I need my pendant back," she snapped and ripped the paper in half. "I need to _know_ if it worked!"

"Guard!" she shrieked, lunging to her feet. "Guard!"

"What?" the man asked from his chair.

Jessica Oscura put on her best smile and proceeded to try and win back her pendant.

* * *

_Sam and Tucker_

* * *

"Have I said this is a bad idea?"

Sam's fingers curled tightly around the Specter Speeder's steering wheel, grinding her teeth. "Yes," she hissed at the boy tapping away on his PDA, "I happened to have heard you seven times ago."

"It's just that you never stop. So here I am, left wondering if I actually said it out loud." His voice was calm and collected, but he had a twinkle in his eye.

"Yes," she said tightly, "it's a bad idea, Tucker. Do you have a better one?"

Tucker glanced up to smile sweetly at her. "What, a better idea than three teenage humans traveling, alone, into the Ghost Zone in search of a ghost that we have never met and isn't going to want to help us? How could I possibly come up with an idea that is better than that?"

Sam raised an eyebrow, not taking her eyes off the supernatural field of view through the windshield. A green-pink door nearly clipped their left wing and Sam had to send the Specter Speeder into a barrel roll to avoid a blue door that appeared in front of them.

Dropping into an area that seemed to be devoid of doors, Sam grinned over her shoulder. "Did you have a better idea Jazz?"

The frazzled teenager in the backseat gaped at her. "What?" Jazz sputtered, her fingers digging deep trenches in the seat cushions, her hair tangled and messed from the half-dozen spins, loops, and rolls Sam had already put the vehicle through.

Tucker leaned back in his seat, the PDA beeping contentedly as he tapped at his latest game. "Her plan? Did you have a better one?"

Still blinking in disbelief, Jazz shook her head shakily, wincing as a pair of French doors missed the speeder with inches to spare. "Could you slow down a bit?"

"Why?" Sam asked. An almost evil grin spread across her features.

"You're going to kill us!"

"Unlikely," Tucker snorted.

Laughing, Sam turned the nose of the speeder directly at the next door. "Watch Jazz, this is kind of neat." Then she glanced over her shoulder to watch the older girl's expression.

"SAM!" Jazz squeaked just before the Specter Speeder crashed headlong… through the door. Jazz was staring at them in complete confusion, randomly reaching up to touch her arms and legs to make sure she was still real.

Sam chuckled. "In the Ghost Zone, we're the ghosts. We can just phase through stuff."

Jazz was silentfor a very long few seconds, her mouth moving wordlessly. "Do you think the ghost will help us?"

"Nope," Sam and Tucker replied.

Relaxing in the silence, Sam flew the speeder into the depths of the Ghost Zone. _I hope he can help us, _she sighed, _he really is our only option at this point. I don't know what I'd do if Danny…_

"You know where you're going?" Jazz interrupted, tapping Sam on the shoulder.

"I know where _I'm_ going," Tucker muttered. Holding out his PDA, he showed the redhead the greenish display. "I digitized Danny's map of the Ghost Zone. See? The blue dot is us and the red dot is where we're heading."

Sam shook her head sourly. "We're using _Danny's _map? He gets lost on the way to school."

"Yeah," the boy shot back, "but do we have any _other_ maps? Why don't you get out _your_ map. Wait! I know. Let's find a magical map of the ghost zone that can take us wherever we want to go. How does _that_ sound?"

"Perfect," Sam quipped. "Where can we find one?"

Although he had his mouth open to reply, Tucker paused when Jazz laughed softly. Sam shot her a glance. The girl seemed to have calmed down a lot from her 'near-death' scare, but her hair was still mussed and knotted. "What's so funny?" she asked.

"You two," she smiled. "You sound so… normal."

Sam traded a look with Tucker. She raised one skeptical eyebrow. "Normal?"

"Normal." Jazz laughed again. "Your best friend, who is a half-dead superhero, is lying unconscious in a hospital. We're in another dimension – where we're the ghosts by the way – heading to ask some long-dead author for some help which we may not receive. And here you are talking about magical maps…" she dissolved into a helpless chuckle. "And yet you still sound normal."

Sam sent her a small smile. "That's the life of superhero sidekicks."

"You know," Tucker interjected, "Danny'll kill you when he finds out you've been calling him a superhero behind his back."

Smiling to herself, Sam focused on driving. Reflected in the window, she could see Tucker hunch back over his PDA and Jazz take a book out of her backpack and flip it open.

Doors flew by. Little ones, big ones, colorful ones, decorated ones… on and on the parade of endless portals passed by like a high-speed parade. Sam was stifling a yawn as she directed the small vehicle over an odd grouping of ancient-looking doors.

Tucker's PDA gave an especially loud _BEEP_. He looked up as they cleared the last of the doors. "We're here," he said softly.

Coming into view, the large, Roman-style building soared over them. Columns a dozen feet wide leapt into the air from impossibly wide steps. An ancient, white-washed belfry towered over them, complete with a ghostly tolling bell, fluttering bats, and deep shadows. Sam brought the Specter Speeder to a stop, gazing silently at the cobweb-covered door. A shiver ran through her as the foreboding feeling of the haunted library surrounded her.

For a few precious seconds, nobody dared to move. Sam opened her mouth to speak, but found herself unable to make any noise. The whole area was seeped in the feel of an ancient library – silent, slow, timeless, and full of knowledge.

"You sure this ghost will help us?" Jazz whispered, unbuckling her seat belt. The sound of the metal buckle was muffled in the thick air.

Tucker nodded slowly, a frown on his face. "He will." His voice was soft, but Sam noticed that he couldn't drag his eyes off the building.

A man's voice echoed through the quiet of the speeder. "No, he won't."

Sam whirled around. Standing in the back, arms crossed and an angry look on his face, was the ghost they had been searching for.

* * *

Tucker stared at the ghost floating in the back of the Specter Speeder. The Ghost Writer stared at them over the tops of his glasses, arms folded, an angry expression on his face. "Give me just _one_ good reason to help you," the ghost hissed.

"Um…" he hesitated

Jazz spoke up. "Do you have any idea what kind of help we need?"

"No," the ghost said sourly, "but then again, I'm not usually in the mood to assist anybody with anything."

Tucker licked his lips, settling back in his chair. Danny had said a few times that the Ghost Writer wasn't an _evil_ ghost but that he sure wasn't a _nice_ ghost. But the dead author was giving off an aura that made the hairs on the back of Tucker's neck stand up and a chilly feeling crept into the heated interior of the speeder.

"My brother is sick," Jazz continued, "and we're looking for information to help him."

"Why should I care about some human?" the ghost scoffed, narrowing his eyes. The temperature of the vehicle plummeted a few more degrees.

"She's talking about Danny Phantom," Sam added. "He said you had a lot of books – that you knew things." She hesitated, but didn't back down. "He said that you were okay for a ghost."

"I still don't know why I should help you." Tucker watched as a small smile flickered across the ghost's face. "But, perhaps, we can come to an agreement."

"An agreement?" Sam said. "What kind of agreement?"

Nodding his head, the ghost's smile grew. "I collect stories. You tell me a story that I have never heard before, I'll let you into my library to search for… whatever you wanted to know."

"That's it?" Jazz asked.

Tucker glanced at her, furrowing his eyebrows. _Tell a story he's never heard before? Doesn't this ghost own every story ever written? How are you going to come up with one?_

The ghost nodded again, crossing his legs and settling in the air like he was sitting onto a chair. "One story in return for your brother's life."

"Alright…" Jazz started, but the Ghost Writer cut her off.

"No, not you." One spectral finger pointed in Tucker's direction. "Him. I want you to tell me a story. With no help."

Gulping, Tucker shook his head slowly. "I don't tell stories."

"It's up to you." The ghost waited, fiddling his fingers in his lap, supernatural eyes trained on Tucker's hazel ones.

"Fine," he said sourly, thinking quickly. _What kind of story has this guy never heard before? He's had to have heard all the normal ones – all the ones I'd know. Or, maybe I could tell him a story that's just happened. _Smile growing across his face, Tucker leaned forwards slightly. _A story that nobody knows. _"I'll tell you Danny's story."

An eyebrow quirked, but the ghost waited patiently.

As the teenager began to relate what he knew about the past three weeks, the Ghost Writer sat quietly, listening intently. At one point, when Tucker was telling about how Danny had 'died', the ghost actually had to wipe a tear off of his cheek. Tucker's voice grew quiet as he neared the end of his tale. "Danny was stuck in his coma, and no matter what the doctors or his family tried, he just lay there. A hero, doomed to die a slow death if nobody could save him. His friends came up with a stupid plan to try and save him – they flew into the Ghost Zone in the hopes of finding someone to help."

Silence fell and the two guys stared each other down, forgetting the girls for a moment. "Where's the end of the story?" the Ghost Writer asked.

"It hasn't been written yet. There's a ghost standing in the way," Tucker muttered.

The ghost bit his lip. "So here you are," the ghost said softly.

"So you'll help?" Tucker's heart beat quickly, waiting for the answer.

"Such a story deserves to be continued," the writer whispered slowly, nodding his head, "even if it's about halfas and humans."

* * *

_Jazz and Sam_

* * *

Jazz dropped into a chair in the Ghost Writer's library with a snarl. _I'm getting nowhere with this!_ For a moment, she stared around the room. The thousands of books, stacked nearly three stories high in places, were daunting. _An impossible task. _She opened up the latest book – a large, forest green tome – and started to peruse the first few pages in silence.

"There isn't anything in there," a quiet voice said behind her.

She glanced over her shoulder, raising an eyebrow at the spectral author. "How can you be so sure?"

He smiled, drifting over to pick up the book she had been holding. "This is _my_ library. A compendium of every book published in the Ghost Zone. I am the caretaker of the books." He carefully closed the book, sliding it back on the shelf. "That means I am the caretaker of all this knowledge."

"You know what's in _all_ these books?"

"Every one," he agreed. "It's rather elementary for me, dear Watson, as it's my entire existence. And I know there's nothing in that book that would help you."

Jazz's blue eyes flashed as she got to her feet, striding over to the shelf and removing a new book. She stared down at the gilded letters for a moment before turning away and beginning to flip idly through the pages. A chill feeling crept up her back as the ghost peered over her shoulder.

"There's nothing in that one either," he muttered.

She barely repressed a childish eye roll. _Well, why don't you just help me then?_ Instead of retorting, she merely closed the book and returned it, taking the next book down the line.

"Or _that_ one."

"Would you have a suggestion for a book to look in, then?" she said, fighting to keep the frustration out of her voice. "Or are you just going to float there and tell me where _not_ to look?"

The Ghost Writer looked almost sheepish as he picked a book off the shelf and paged through it. "All I can say to _that_ is that when you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever is left – no matter how improbable – must be what you are searching for." He floated across the room, apparently engrossed in the words.

"Fine," Jazz murmured, leaning against the bookshelf with her arms crossed. "Then why don't you leave me alone to look in peace?"

"As you wish," the ghost said softly, setting the book down on a small table next to him and drifting off through the far wall. "Just remember, there is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact."

Jazz closed her eyes and sighed. _What's with all the Doyle references? Oh, forget it. I've got to think about this logically. There has got to be some kind of system if this is a library._ _Maybe they are sorted by subject? Author? Title?_

With a groan, she grabbed another book and settled back down on the cold floor to read.

* * *

Hours later, Sam stuck her head into the room Jazz was looking through. Jazz was wandering disconsolately around the room, trailing her fingers over the hundreds and hundreds of books that were within her reach. Unwilling to completely give up, she would pick up a random book, glance at the title, and then stick it back onto the shelf.

"Jazz?" Sam whispered after a moment. "Are you getting anywhere?"

"No. How about you?"

The Goth shook her head, walking the rest of the way into the room and shutting the door behind her. "There have to be _millions_ of books in each room, and I stopped counting rooms an hour ago. How are we supposed to get through them _all_?"

"I don't think we are," Jazz replied, an odd tone to her voice. "This was a good idea, Sam, but I think it's a dead end."

Sam was silent, staring around the room. "There has got to be something…"

"There might be, but without _help_ we won't ever find it!"

Sam looked up at the fuming redhead, blinking in surprise. "Are you okay?"

"Of course I'm okay," Jazz snarled, closing her eyes and rubbing her temples with her fingers. "Why would I not be okay?"

"You sound… frustrated."

Sighing, the older girl snatched another book off the shelf and paged through it. "There's got to be some kind of system to this," she muttered, "if only I could find it. I've just got to think logically. I've just got to…"

Sam let her eyes slide over the titles of the books. _Spectral Snakes. How to Fly Widdershins Around a Haunt. 101 Ways to Fry an Egg. The Biography of Pariah Dark. The Compleat Atlas to the Lost Portal City of Atlantis…_

_They have nothing to do with each other. They're just randomly placed on the shelves._ She glanced around the room at the rainbow of colors that adorned each bookcase. "How do you think the Ghost Writer finds anything in here?"

"He knows where everything is." Jazz sounded distracted, four books piled in her arms. "He doesn't need to search."

Wrinkling her forehead, Sam continued to look around the room, a thought germinating in her mind. "Then how does he expect us to find what we're looking for?"

Jazz grabbed another book from the shelves before carrying all five books to one of the small, empty tables scattered around the room. "I don't think he does. He probably doesn't care."

"But he promised to help."

"No," Jazz shook her head, "he promised to let us into his library to look, not to help us search."

Sam chewed on her lip as the other girl scanned the first of her books. "But… he must know we're not going to leave until we find what we're looking for."

No answer.

_She's ignoring me._ Sam blew a bit of hair out of her eyes and walked across the room, studying the area carefully. _There's got to be something. The Ghost Writer doesn't want us here. He had to give us some sort of clue… some sort of hint…_

She let her fingers glide over the dust-free surface of one of the tables, then lightly skimmed the bookshelves. Empty table, bookshelf, empty table, bookshelf, empty table, bookshelf…

_Oh this is stupid. _"We're not in some kind of Sherlock Holmes story," she whispered.

"What?" Jazz asked.

"Nothing." _Don't be an idiot. The ghost isn't helping us. He's not leaving us 'clues' to find._ Empty table, bookshelf, empty table, bookshelf, empty… _Wait. A book? _"Why'd you leave this book out?"

"I didn't," Jazz said distractedly. "Ghost Writer did."

Sam snorted. "Right. You should have seen him when he came in to talk to me. I'd just been piling the books up after I went through them – he blew a gasket. Threatened to lock me in a story until I learned to respect books…" She trailed off, picking the book up. _So, why did he leave this out?_

"Maybe that's the one he's reading," Jazz murmured. "Is it Sherlock Holmes?"

Sam shot her a glance. "What?"

"He was making silly Arthur Conan Doyle references earlier. I figured he was reading the Holmes mysteries."

"No, it's not that." She trailed her fingers over the silver letters, sharp and shiny against the midnight blue cover. _A Complete Compendium, by… Hippocrates? Where did I hear that name before?_ "Jazz? Who was Hippocrates?"

"The Hippocratic Oath."

Sam jumped when Jazz suddenly appeared over her shoulder. Grinning, the redhead snatched the book out of Sam's fingers and started to eagerly flip through it. "The what?" Sam asked.

"The Hippocratic Oath. That's the oath doctor's take… Hippocrates was supposedly the father of medicine…" She wasn't really paying attention to what she was saying, engrossed in the book. Gasping, she looked up, a huge grin on her face. "This is all about healing _ghosts._ This is _exactly_ what I've been looking for! Where did you find it?"

"It was on the table." Sam took a few wary steps away from the excited teenager. "Why?"

"He _was_ giving us a hint! Holmes was famous for his powers of observation. He wanted me to look around the room!" Jazz's grin looked like it was about to split her face in two as she continued to scan the pages excitedly. "This has _got_ to be it."

Tucker slunk into the room, his glasses pushed low on his nose, an annoyed expression his face. "Idiot ghost won't even digitize his library," the boy muttered darkly as he walked over to them, "do you have any idea how much _easier_ this would be if we could just enter some terms into a search bot?"

Sam elbowed him, "Jazz thinks we found something."

"Really?"

Jazz nodded. "Ghost doctor… wrote a book…" Closing the book, she looked around. "Let's get out of here." She headed for the door, book under her arm, Sam and Tucker glancing at each other.

"You think Ghost Writer will let us out with one of his books?" Tucker grinned.

Sam shrugged her shoulders. "I doubt it, but I think he _really _wants us out of his library. He's the one that left it out on the table for us. Maybe if we promise to bring it back?"

Laughing, Tucker headed for the door. "Either way, let's stay well back from Jazz as she tries to carry the thing out the door… just in case."

* * *

_Jack_

* * *

_What the…_ Jack backed away from the portal just in time to keep from getting run over by the Specter Speeder when it burst through the portal. _Note to self: build incoming warning device for ghost portal_. He blinked at the three teenagers that were in the cockpit.

"Where have you been?" he asked, not even thinking about the fact that they wouldn't be able to hear him. Beyond the window, Tucker waved at him before turning and saying something to Jazz. The older girl looked up, then struggled out of her seatbelt and vanished from view.

"Dad!" Jazz shrieked, throwing open the door and racing to his side. "Look at this!"

"Where have you been?" he asked again, trying to be stern and parent-like. "With Danny in the hospital, now is not a good time to be off…"

"Dad," she interrupted. "We were trying to help Danny. Now – look at this!"

"What is it?"

"It's a book!" She opened it to a page that she had marked and shoved it in front of his nose. "Read this."

He narrowed his eyes, pushing the book a bit away so he could focus on the odd lines of text. The ancient book appeared to be handwritten, the slightly glowing scrawl hard to read at points.

_Specters are energie given forme. The more energie a specter possesses, the more stable its forme and the more active a specter can be. I tested this theorie upon an unsuspecting passerby a few days ago. Draining the creature of most of its energie, I watched in fascination as it fell into a sleep-like state, its forme even beginning to dissolve at one point._

Jack grabbed the book from his daughter's hands, gasping in surprise. "This is what happened to Danny!" He scanned it for a few moments, then looked up with narrowed eyes. "Where did you get this?"

"A ghost," Jazz said simply as Sam and Tucker slid out of the speeder. "But it doesn't matter, keep reading!"

"But…"

"No 'but's," Jazz hissed. "Read."

_I repeated the experiment on severale specters that wandered past my laire over the intervening days. All the creatures – from powerful to lame – underwent a similar process as their energie was removed, over differing time frames. First, they would fall into a state of sleep, then their forme would begin to fall apart. I can assume that most, if not all, of the inhabitants of this spectral realme would follow a similar set of steps._

"So that's what happened. Danny must have lost nearly all of his spectral energy. That's kind of what I had figured," Jack muttered, flipping the brittle page, ignoring the three teenagers that were crowding around him. "But how do you _fix_ it after he's been drained?"

_Unfortunately, a forme of ghostly council has interceded and has commanded that I returne the creatures to their original state. This was easy to accomplish. I merely had to returne the lost energie. A concoction of liquid spectral energie injected into straight into the body seems to work the most efficiently…_

Stopping reading, Jack just stared down at the book. "It can't be that easy," he whispered. "It just can't."

"What?" Jazz asked, wrinkling her forehead. "That's the answer, right? We can cure Danny?"

Jack shook his head dazedly. "It can't be _that easy_."

"What did it say?" Sam asked, dropping into a chair, her eyes worried. Tucker was still reading the page upside down, a frown on his face.

Not answering, Jack just kept reading, silently mouthing the words.

"Dad," Jazz hissed. "I read it, but what does it mean? You're the ghost expert – you _have_ to understand it. Tell us!"

"It means…" he hesitated, picking a slightly glowing vial of ectoplasm off of his messy desk. '_Returne the lost energie_.'

_But how?_

He stared at the small bit of glass for a few moments. '_…Liquid spectral energie…'_ He had sat by his son's side for hours and hours. He knew everything in that room, there had to be _something _that could help. Thinking over everything, from the beeping of the monitors to the steady dripping of the… "That's it."

* * *

Jack sat in the chair in the corner of the hospital room, his eyes heavy. _This needs to work…_ he thought to himself. He glanced over at Maddie. Fast asleep in the only other chair in the room, she had probably nodded off a few hours ago. He needed to get some sleep too, but someone needed to be awake. Just in case. Just in case this crazy plan of his worked.

He had slipped some ectoplasm into Danny's IV earlier that evening with the hope that the night shift nurses wouldn't notice the odd glow of the fluid. Maddie had, of course, noticed it right away and had demanded an explanation. Now it was just a waiting game. _Wait for Danny's ghost half to get better._ He sighed. _That just sounds so weird to be saying._

Turning his gaze to his son, Jack smiled slightly. Danny's disheveled hair still hung down into his eyes despite Maddie's attempts to comb it. His hair had been a point of contention between the two of them for years. Maddie wanted it cut short. Danny wanted it longer. _Even unconscious, Danny is winning that battle_.

Jack allowed the grin to grow across his face. _Jazz is right. Danny'll pull through this_. He leaned the chair back, letting some of his bulk rest against the hospital wall. Ignoring the chair's protesting creaks, he closed his eyes.

The steady, soothing sounds of the hospital began to lull him into a half-asleep state. Listening to the light chatter and soft beeping of the equipment around him, he let his mind drift. At first, his mind flittered over the equipment in his lab – what needed to be done in the next few weeks, what to do the next time he was home, what projects needed to be scrapped – but his thoughts ultimately settled back down on his son.

_My son. _An image of Danny when he was five, covered in goo and racing around the house pretending to be a ghost, appeared in his mind. Chuckling softly at the memory, he let it fade away and a much more recent image appeared. Danny, glaring reproachfully at Jessica Oscura at the brunch they had gone to. That moment had been the last time he had seen his son outside of the hospital._ I saw him get captured too…_

That thought jarred his mind enough that his eyes snapped open. _I _let_ my son get captured._ He stared down at the back of his hands. _I didn't know he was Danny… but I knew it was wrong. I should've stopped it._ Turning his hands over, he was unaware of the small tear that had formed in his eye. _Ghost or not, I should have stopped it._

He looked up at Danny, blinking at how blurry everything looked. _I let my hatred of ghosts and my desire to destroy them get in the way of my family._

_Never again,_ he vowed, his promise sealed by the sight of his child lying near death on the hospital bed. _Never again._

"Danny," he whispered, "I'm sorry."

Closing his eyes, he dropped his head onto his hands, for the first time noticing the wetness on his cheek. He tried to picture his son accepting his apology, laughing with that shy grin of his and sending him a quiet eye-roll. But he couldn't. That's something _Danny_ would do… not this young hero that was lying on the bed before him.

_My Danny is clumsy, forgetful, shy, and quick to run away. This Danny is everything my son is not. Who is he really? _Jack folded his arms over his chest, leaned back in his chair, and sighed. He hated conundrums. _When did I lose my little boy and gain this young man?_

When he heard someone groan, his eyes shot open. "Danny?" he whispered. Sitting forward in his chair, he stared at his son, waiting, watching. The whole hospital seemed to be holding its breath, the clock stopping its timeless ticking, the fans pausing in their endless rotations. Danny's head rolled to the left and his forehead bunched up. Jack stood up slowly, his eyes never leaving Danny's face. "Danny?" he whispered again, a bit louder.

When Danny's head rolled over to the right, a very small smile appeared on Jack's face and he took a step forward. Butterflies were dancing in his stomach. He glanced over at Maddie. "Mads," he murmured, reaching out to shake her shoulder.

She shot awake. "Jack?" she asked softly, "What?"

"I think Danny's waking up," he replied. Maddie shot out of her chair, racing over to her son's side.

"Danny?" she said. She reached down and picked up his hand. Jack took a few steps closer, but hesitated at the last moment and stayed behind her.

Finally Danny's eyes flickered open. He stared dazedly into the eyes of his mother for a few moments before he licked his lips. "Mom?" he rasped.

Maddie burst into tears and wrapped Danny into a huge hug. Jack, still standing a few feet back, got a good look at Danny's surprised face sticking over her shoulder. After a second, Danny grinned and weakly wrapped his arms around her. He glanced up, spotted his father, and smiled at him. "Hey Dad."

Jack beamed back at his son. He had seen the flicker of life growing into those sleep-filled blue eyes. Better than that, he had seen _Danny _in those eyes. His Danny. His son. _Danny will be fine._ Jack pushed his doubts away for the moment and stepped up to the bed. He sat on the edge and wrapped his son and his wife into a big hug.

He doubted Maddie was going to let go for quite awhile. Jack was quite content with that. He wasn't planning on letting go either.

* * *

_Jazz and Tucker_

* * *

As surreptitiously as possible, she fingered the black pendant that hung around her neck. Playing the 'religious artifact' card had been a genius move on her part – and none too soon. She'd gotten her hands on the pendant just a few hours before her transfer to a new prison. Hopefully her new guards would be incompetent and wouldn't question the jewelry.

But it wasn't worth taking the chance of them taking it too soon. She would have to run a test in the van, hoping that the government goons in the front seat wouldn't have any ghost equipment sensitive enough to pick it up.

She studied the two white-clothed men. Neither were paying attention. Taking a slow breath, she squeezed her fingers together, putting gentle pressure on the silky, black wood. Her fingers began to tingle as bluish energy swirled around her hand. She shifted her fingers, searching for the spot that would trigger the emerald energy from the hybrid… if it was there…

_Bleep-bleep-bleep!_

Jessica dropped the pendant, scattering the energy as the ghost alarm blared through the van. Slitting her eyes, she watched the two men scan their equipment and drag out some odd-looking weaponry. She waited, tense, as the alarm shut off and the goons relaxed, muttering to themselves about false alarms.

Letting her eyes drift completely shut, her head dropped backwards onto the hard headrest. A soft breath whistled out from between her teeth in disappointment. Testing the pendant in the van was not going to be an option. She would have to just wait until she made it to the prison and hope they weren't going to take it away from her.

On the slightly more positive side, at least there was someone at the prison waiting for her.

* * *

For the first time in more weeks than she wanted to think about, her little brother stepped through the front door. Jazz was sitting at the kitchen table, watching him slowly walk over to the couch and collapse onto it. She giggled a little when Danny snatched the remote off the coffee table and flicked on the television. He hadn't stopped complaining about the lack of channels at the hospital since he woke up. Apparently some people couldn't live without fifty channels of pointless shows.

Grabbing her textbook, Jazz wandered into the living room and sank down onto her father's arm chair. She curled her feet under her and opened the book to the page she had been on, just sitting quietly and reading. Every so often, her eyes would flicker up at her brother before settling back down on the words.

"What?" Danny asked when he felt her glance up at him for the fifth time.

"Nothing," she replied simply, turning the page.

The TV snapped off, silence filling the room. A small explosion from down in the lab broke the quiet. "You want something," he continued slowly, studying her. "You want to talk. No…" he hesitated, "you want _me_ to talk. You want to dig into my mind again, don't you?"

Jazz raised one eyebrow, but didn't look up at him. She casually flipped another page before coming to the realization that she hadn't actually read what was on the previous page.

"Say something Jazz."

Chewing on her lower lip, she focused on the book a little better, struggling to not answer her brother. If he wanted to talk, she was here – but she wasn't going to badger it out of him. A half-dozen hospital psychologists had already tried. She was almost positive the cheerful and harassed hospital staff had done more harm then good in Danny's case. They had probably realized it too, finally signing the paper that let him go home.

"I'm _fine_ Jazz." Danny sounded exasperated.

She nodded absently, giving up on the page and turning to the next with a mental sigh. She would have to reread the entire chapter later. _I'm here for you, Danny,_ she thought as she studied one of the bolded words on the page. She let her eyes trace the graceful lettering without actually comprehending the word she was looking at. T_alk to me. Let me help._ But she never said a word.

In the silence that flooded the living room, Jazz started to wonder if Danny hadn't gotten up and went to his room. It was unusual for her brother to be this quiet. Her eyes slipped off her book and up into her brother's ice blue gaze before she realized what she was doing. _Maybe it's some kind of byproduct from being locked in that room for so long_. She held his gaze, then returned to her book. _At least he's still here._

Seven pages later, she could still feel Danny's eyes on her. He hadn't turned the television back on, he hadn't gotten up to leave, and he hadn't said anything. _Although,_ she conceded to herself, _he probably can't get up and leave on his own. Does he want me to leave?  
_

A few more pages of blurred and nearly incomprehensible text and Jazz was nearly ready to call it quits. She didn't want her brother to be mad at her for being pushy and not being able to focus on her book was frustrating. _One more page_, she promised, _and I'll leave. He can talk to me later._

"It's weird," Danny's voice cut through her musings suddenly.

Jazz raised an eyebrow, but didn't answer aloud. _That could mean anything. What's up, little brother?_

"When I close my eyes, or when it's really quiet, it's just so weird." His voice was soft and introspective. When Jazz glanced up at him, Danny wasn't even looking at her. His eyes were closed and his head was tipped off to the side. His uncut hair was dangling in his eyes.

She finally spoke. "What's so weird?"

Eyes opened and focused out the living room window. "Something's missing."

"What's missing?" Jazz was trying to keep her voice bored and distant, but she really wasn't succeeding.

Danny shot her a glance and a small smile, then shrugged. "Not a big deal, worry wart," he teased. But his smile faded and his eyes drifted back out the window.

_He's worried and trying to hide it. _Jazz closed her textbook – having not read a single word in the past eleven pages anyway – and set it onto the coffee table. "What's missing?"

"I don't know. Something." He waved his hand at the window. "It's like a part of me is over there – a long ways away."

"A duplicate?"

He shook his head. "No, I can't do anything with it. It's just _there_. Some kind of…" he trailed off and closed his eyes, "...line is tying me to it." He was quiet, struggling for words. Finally, he just shrugged his shoulders. "But it's so small that I can't feel it all the time. Just when it's quiet and I've got nothing else to do."

Quietly, Jazz unfolded her legs. "Maybe you should talk to Mom and Dad about it. They've probably got some kind of invention…"

Danny shook his head, letting the shadow of a grin cross his face. "Not on your life. I'm not in any shape to be dodging inventions right now."

"They need to know what happening to you." She fixed her eyes on him, reaching over and picking up the controller off the table where he had dropped it. "And you never know, maybe they can be helpful. They _are_ the leading experts in their field, you know."

He rolled his eyes. Jazz leaned forwards and touched the controls to turn on the TV. Flipping to her favorite channel, she sighed and let the voices and pictures flood the room. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the almost-smile drift off his face. He picked at his fingernails for a moment with a pensive look on his face before settling down to watching the show.

* * *

Tucker glanced around the crowded living room. _This is a new definition for a 'captive' audience_, he thought when Mr. Fenton dropped onto the couch between him and Sam and effectively trapped him against the arm rest.

His eyes trained on his best friend – who was twitching his fingers nervously and seemed to be carefully counting every thread in the arm of the chair he was sitting in. Danny had agreed to tell them what had happened to him, but it was pretty obvious he wasn't too happy about it. Tucker leaned forwards, trying to catch a glimpse of Sam around Mr. Fenton's girth. His 'blushy moment' senses were tingling…

He grinned when Sam suddenly stood up and pushed a footstool over towards Danny's chair. She sat on it, grabbing Danny's twitching hand and giving him a small smile, a faint blush appearing on her cheeks when Danny quietly returned the smile. _Some things will never change_. But Tucker's smile vanished almost as quickly as it had come when he remembered why they were all crammed into the Fenton's living room.

"So, Danny," Mr. Fenton said, not seeming to notice how edgy Danny was acting, "you ready?"

The boy shrugged, blue eyes training back down on the chair arm. "I suppose," he said softly. Talking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and began his story. "I guess it all started with that brunch we went to. I knew something was wrong already…"

Tucker listened to Danny tell the story, watching him squirm in his chair at some of the parts, covering his smiles whenever he saw Danny's eyes flicker towards the window in the vain hope for freedom. Danny's fingers picked distantly at the loose fibers on the chair as he spoke, an odd note to his voice. _It's like_, thought Tucker,_ he's telling somebody else's story rather than his._

Glancing away from Danny, Tucker studied the rest of the odd audience. Sam's fingers were wrapped tightly around Danny's hand, her face pale. Jazz was just staring at him with her mouth slightly open. The large man holding him in the couch was quietly blinking and had joined Danny in staring out the front window. Mrs. Fenton had her eyes closed, randomly shaking her head.

_How much of this story has she already heard?_ Tucker wondered to himself when Mrs. Fenton's eyes flickered open for a heartbeat. He turned his head back to Danny in time to see him cast a glance at his mother before returning his gaze to the arm of the chair. _He's leaving parts out_, Tucker realized with a sort of numb disbelief as he tried to get his mind around everything that had happened.

_Danny had… died…_ Feeling his stomach sink, Tucker felt the pain of his best friend's death all over again. It was decidedly weird to be sitting next to someone, listening to them tell you how they had died and what it was like. As Danny spoke, Tucker's mind began to spin. Almost like a switch had been thrown in his head, Tucker went from numb and frozen to focused and thinking. _He had died._

His eyes focused on Danny, listening carefully to the story. _How did he live through it? He was dead, and he came back to life._ _That's impossible._ Tucker's brain was on overdrive. Thoughts drifted into his head, were weighed and sorted, and tossed out as impossible. _Voices? He heard voices? Voices would be people…_

The idea strengthened in his mind. _People kept him alive. Danny's saved so many people, and then they saved him. But how?_ Tucker furrowed his brow, narrowing his eyes. He didn't like mysteries – he'd solve this one too.

_Could it be that simple?_ He wondered as his brain muddled over a few solutions. _Could he have just 'borrowed' enough energy from Amity Park to keep himself alive? We let him have that little bit of life because he's saved us? He's our hero?_

Tucker settled back into his chair, eyes distant as the rest of Danny's story just washed over him. He couldn't shake the feeling that figuring out how Danny had survived was, somehow, going to be really important.

A smile began to drift onto his face, completely at odds with everyone else in the room. No matter the outcome, no matter what came next, Danny was alive. Danny was the closest thing Tucker had ever had to a brother, and he _knew_ that no matter what was going to happen, they could solve it together.

Sam shot him a small glare, but Tucker couldn't help it. He let his eyes drift closed as his smile grew.

* * *

Jessica Oscura sat primly on the edge of the bed in her cell, watching the guards walk past. "Well?" a voice hissed to her from the cell next door.

"Patience, little brother." Jessica muttered, pulling her necklace out of her shirt to reveal the small, black pendant. She narrowed her eyes, wrapping her fingers around it, watching in delight as small green and blue swirls of light began to dance over its surface, energy charging in the air. "It worked," she whispered in disbelief.

"I don't like being kept waiting!"

"Quiet!" Jessica snapped. "You failed, Frederik. I, on the other hand, have won."

The sound of snickering filled the cell. "I heard he got away. How could you have won if he lived through it?"

Jessica shrugged, not caring that her brother couldn't see her. "It seems that it doesn't matter if he ultimately lived. It's not even a really big deal that his mother got away. He died. On the full moon, no less. And on the sacred grounds." She laughed, her voice ringing out like hellish bells. "Both of him died. Two lives. Perfect."

Silence reigned as the man in the cell next to her contemplated that. "So you got it?" His voice was barely audible, hope making his voice hoarse.

She smiled happily, the blue and green swirls dancing against the black again. "I got it," she whispered. She squeezed tightly, letting the emerald energy build to a dizzying level.

* * *

Back in Amity Park, Danny's eyes rolled back into his head and he collapsed.

* * *

_Jack and Sam_

* * *

Jack was off the couch as Danny slumped against the side of the chair, grabbing an arm to keep him from falling.

"Danny!" Jazz yelped from her spot on the couch as Jack picked Danny up and set him gently onto the floor.

_What's going on?_ the large man thought desperately. The color was slowly draining out of his son's face. _Is he still sick? _He_ g_lanced up to meet his wife's eyes_._

The teenager lay there, growing paler by the second. In the end, there was nothing he could do but watch in horror as his son was surrounded by an odd green glow.

* * *

Jessica Oscura laughed as the emerald energy swirled around her. For a moment, she thought she felt a resistance… some kind of pressure fighting her. She curled her fingers a little tighter around the pendant and pulled more of the energized plasma out into the holding cell.

Alarms were blaring all around her. "Um… Sis?" The grating voice of her younger brother barely was audible over the mind-numbing wail.

She ignored them all, focusing on her goal – freedom. "I want to be free of here, I want the door to be gone," she whispered in a soft manta, using her words to force the pendant's energy into motion.

Green energy flared and mixed with the blue, forming a shadowy figure in the small cell with her. Barely identifiable as a human, it possessed what appeared to be two arms and two legs, dark and infinite black where the body was supposed to be, glinting white around the head, with two electric eyes that stared at her from the blankness of its face.

"Stop what you are doing and drop any weapons," a white-clad guard snapped as he rounded the corner. He stumbled to a stop when he noticed the ghostly form floating in the cell with Jessica, his eyes going wide. "What the…" his eyes flickered from Jessica to the figure and back. "Where did…"

Ignoring the guard, Jessica held up the pendant before the dark figure's eyes. Its emerald gaze fixed on the black wood as it bobbed under her fingers. "I hold your existence in my hand, ghost. You will do as I command."

The guard was joined by two others, all three of them pointing weapons in her direction. "You will cease and desist."

"I will destroy you unless you follow my every command. Do you understand me?" Jessica ordered, completely turning her back on the Guys in White. She glared down the ghost and waited for the vague head to nod its understanding.

A small shiver suddenly slid down her back. The figure never looked at _her_, never focused its eyes on _her_. Its entire attention was focused on the pendant dangling from her fingers. An impossible amount of power was coursing through the wraith that was bound to the small necklace. She knew all too well that it would turn on her in a moment if it could gain its freedom.

Now, however, wasn't the time to think about it. Now was the time for action. She pointed towards the bars holding her in her cell. "Destroy."

* * *

On the floor of the Fenton household, Danny began to twitch and spasm. Energy flared around him in a frozen mist, chasing his family and friends away from him. His muscles tensed as he seemed to be fighting some kind of invisible force.

Jack crouched down a few feet from his son, reaching a hand out in an attempt to touch him. His breath was fogging in the air and his fingers beginning to tingle from the cold. "Danny?"

* * *

Jessica smiled as her wraith turned, green lightning crackling through the air around the figure like a pair of angel's wings. It floated forwards, not bothering to pretend to walk. One hand came up, lightning slashing away from it and slamming into the bars of the cell. The door exploded outwards.

The three guards that had been standing outside her prison cell were caught up in the blast. When the light from the intense flare faded, three bleeding bodies lay on the floor under the tangled remains of the cell door. Jessica stepped forwards, ignoring the guards. The wraith followed her, eerie green eyes fixed on the pendant.

"Free my brother," she ordered.

The shadowed figure snarled, but turned to do as she commanded.

* * *

Sam pushed through the cold, shivering as she dropped down next to Mr. Fenton. "Danny," she breathed, her teeth chattering. "What's wrong?"

Mr. Fenton just shook his head and continued to stare at his son. Danny twitched and let out a strangled scream, shaking his head violently. The light bulbs in the fan over their heads exploded, followed a heartbeat later by the television. Lightning flared.

* * *

Three figures stepped from the smoking remains of the Guys in White holding facility in the outskirts of Chicago. One was a tall lady with a regal tilt to her head, another was a thin man with an overlarge nose, the third a shadowy form floating inches above the ground. The two humans walked away. Following like a fly drawn to a lantern, the wraith trailed behind them, eyes fixed on the small pendant once again dangling around Jessica's throat.

Jessica wiped a small bead of sweat off of her forehead. The wraith was fighting her every step of the way and she was developing a headache.

"Ghost," she said, twisting around to glare at the wraith with her reddish eyes. The specter came to a halt, its supernatural gaze never leaving her throat. Fighting to suppress the shiver that wanted to race through her at the knowledge of just what kind of deadly power was staring at her, she snarled out her next command. "Leave me for now, but you will return when I call for you. You are my servant. You are my slave. You will do as I command."

Power crackled around the figure as it silently raised its gaze to look her straight in the eyes for a moment. Murder flooded through the eyes as it slowly nodded and faded out of existence. Jessica waited for the very last sparks of energy to disappear before she sagged slightly and let her eyes close.

Hands touched her shoulders, keeping her from collapsing to the ground. "You okay?" her brother asked softly.

"That thing is a lot more powerful than I thought," she admitted, regaining her balance and setting back off down the street. Sirens were beginning to sound in the distance and she didn't want to be anywhere near here when the authorities arrived.

"But you're in control of it."

She nodded her head. Glancing down at the pendant swinging on the small chain, she chewed her bottom lip in thought.

Moments before the first police cars rounded the corner leading to the high-tech GIW facility, the two siblings vanished into a grove of trees.

* * *

With one final, strangled scream, the icy fire vanished from around Danny. Sam shivered as the air began to slowly warm up as she watched her best friend relax back down on the floor and seem to fall asleep. She crawled forwards and touched his hand. "Danny?"

He rolled his head towards her, groaning. Unfocused blue eyes opened a little and he blinked at her. "Sam?" he said softly, letting his eyes fall closed again. "What happened?"

"I don't know," she answered. "Are you okay?"

Danny let out a soft moan, but didn't try to move.

Sam shook her head, turning her violet gaze towards Mr. and Mrs. Fenton. Both of them were pale and crouching on the other side of Danny's limp form, glancing at each other with confused and slightly scared looks in their eyes. Tucker touched her shoulder as Jazz dropped down next to her.

The five of them gazed at each other, silently willing someone to know what to do next.

As the last of the sun's **Light** vanished from the window, deep **Shadows** cast the room into **Darkness**.

In the distance, the **Moon** was rising.


End file.
